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THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION ; 


ONE  LAST  GLIMPSE 


CHARLOTTE  TEMPLE  AND  ELIZA  WHARTON. 

(cWlctPe  )  tElholattk  j 

A  CURIOSITY  OF  LITERATURE  AND  LIFE. 


Cav'olVvtf  Hcnlgv 

By  MRS.aDALL, 

AUTHOR  OF  “the  COLLEGE,  THE  MARKET,  AND  THE  COURT,”  “SUNSHINE,’ 
“HISTORICAL  SKETCHES  RETOUCHED,”  ETC. 


1  In  the  old  age  black  was  not  counted  fair  ; 

Or,  if  it  were,  it  bore  not  beauty’s  name  ” 

Shaksfiere. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 

^75- 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION. 


1 


i 


Printed  by  subscription  and  by  request.  All  orders ,  criti¬ 
cisms ,  and  information  bearing  on  the  contents  of  this 
volume  may  be  sent  to  John  Wilson  arid  Son,  Printers, 
Cambridge,  Mass. 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION; 


OR, 


ONE  LAST  GLIMPSE 


OF 


CHARLOTTE  TEMPLE  AND  ELIZA  WHARTON. 


A  CURIOSITY  OF  LITERATURE  AND  LIFE. 


By  MRS.  DALL, 

AUTHOR  OF  “THE  COLLEGE,  THE  MARKET,  AND  THE  COURT,”  “SUNSHINE,” 
“HISTORICAL  SKETCHES  RETOUCHED,”  ETC. 


“  In  the  old  age  black  was  not  counted  fair  ; 

Or,  if  it  were,  it  bore  not  beauty’s  name.” 

Shakspere. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 

1S75. 

D’  Oti* 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE. 


This  little  brochiire  is  published  by  request  and  by 
subscription.  It  is  not  offered  to  those  who  read  it  as  a 
work  of  art ;  not  even  as  a  contribution  to  literature  nor 
as  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  of  Eliza  Whar¬ 
ton’s  destiny.  A  work  of  art  must  have  been  mercilessly 
shorn  of  details,  and  of  all  indirection  that  would  detract 
from  its  climax.  A  contribution  to  literature  must  chal¬ 
lenge  sympathies  broad  as  the  language.  A  solution  of 
an  old  mystery  must  bring  justification  and  proof  to  every 
assertion.  No  one  of  these  things  is  here  attempted. 

On  the  contrary,  it  was  the  wish  of  those  for  whose 
pleasure  it  was  written  to  preserve  all  the  details  that 
would  recall  hereafter  the  charmed  week  at  Hartford, 
although  at  times  these  might  disguise  the  thread  of  the 
story. 

Again,  the  sympathies  to  which  the  story  is  addressed 
are  limited.  The  members  of  the  Association  present  at 
Hartford,  during  the  last  days  in  August,  1874;  a  few 
persons  who  have  heard  the  manuscript  read ;  and 
women  with  good  memories  in  the  rural  homesteads  up 
and  down  the  Connecticut  River,  —  may  be  all  who  will 
read  it  with  interest. 

Why  then  should  it  be  printed? 

For  the  same  reason  that  Mr.  Bigelow  tells  what  he 
knows  of  the  History  of  Franklin’s  manuscript.  “  The 
facts  here  set  down  if  preserved  may  lead  to  the  discovery 
of  others  which  will  complete  the  story.” 

It  is  impossible  to  prove  Eliza  Wharton’s  marriage 
here  ;  but  it  is  surely  worth  while  to  show  that  those 


2 


VI 


PEE  FA  CE. 


who  watched  by  her  death-bed  fully  believed  in  it  as  a 
fact.  Nothing  short  of  such  a  statement  could  draw  the 
certificate  from  its  hiding-place.  Where  we  find  a  pop¬ 
ular  impression,  surviving  for  a  century,  wrongly  based 
at  the  beginning  and  without  any  foundation  in  the  sus¬ 
picions  of  those  best  cognizant  of  the  facts,  justice  to  the 
noble  men  and  women  who  loved  the  subject  of  it  de¬ 
mands  that  matters  should  be  put  in  train  for  her  ultimate 
justification. 

When  I  had  once  heard  the  Shaksperian  legends  from 
the  believing  lips  of  the  last  descendant  of  Abigail  Stanley, 
it  was  impossible  for  me  to  begin  my  story  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Its  roots  seemed  to  me  to  shoot  over  the 
broad  waves,  as  those  of  a  willow  sometimes  cross  a  coun¬ 
try  road  to  seek  a  brook.  Thomas  Stanley,  neighbor  and 
acquaintance  of  William  Shakspere,  “of  more  conse¬ 
quence  than  most,”  is  a  far  more  attractive  person  than 
any  man  known  merely  as  the  first  settler  of  Hartford. 
When  we  find  him  in  close  company  with  other  men 
whose  names  are  on  the  Stratford  Register  the  interest 
deepens.  Little  wonder  if  “Thong  Church”  should  be 
the  last  thought  and  the  last  boast  of  the  last  survivor  of 
Thomas  Stanley’s  sorely  tried  descendants. 

It  is  well  known  to  genealogists,  and  indeed  to  most 
literary  people,  that  a  very  exhaustive  volume  has  lately 
been  published  on  the  subject  of  Shakspere’s  descend¬ 
ants.  In  that  volume  Shakspere’s  nephews,  the  Harts, 
are  all  accounted  for.  Against  the  name  of  one,  however, 
there  is  no  date  but  that  of  birth,  and  against  that  of 
another  are  the  decisive  words,  “dead  sine  prole.”  For 
this  reason  I  said,  “  There  is  no  certainty  that  the  chil¬ 
dren  of  Joan  Shakspere  died  childless  because  the  regis¬ 
ter  is  silent,”  and  my  words  seem  to  need  interpretation. 

Our  late  civil  war  may  make  clear  some  of  the  inci¬ 
dents  of  the  century  in  which  New  England  was  settled. 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


Just  as  Southern  slave-holders  disinherited  a  recreant 
son  who  had  been  educated  at  the  North  ;  just  as  two 
brothers  reared  under  different  influences  met  each  other 
in  the  fields  of  Shiloh  or  Manasseh,  and  if  they  could, 
crossed  swords  and  passed  each  other  by,  —  so  did  the 
children  and  the  fathers  of  the  first  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  in  England.  If  a  Puritan  son  came  to  New 
England  with  his  family,  the  angry  Cavalier  left  his  name 
standing  on  the  household  book  a  while.  If  the  same 
man  returned  in  1640  to  take  part  with  Oliver  Cromwell, 
the  unhappy  father  wrote  sternly  against  the  name  u  dead 
sine  prole;"  and  this  fact,  not  always  capable  of  proof, 
when  encountered  at  the  Herald’s  office  is  one  great 
obstacle  to  establishing  an  American  pedigree.  But  Cava¬ 
liers  die  also,  and  sometimes  without  children  ;  so  the 
Massachusetts  Bay  Company,  looking  forward  to  the 
Protectorate  or  some  similar  reverse,  ordered  each  one 
of  its  emigrants  to  keep  a  strict  account  of  the  pedigree 
and  increase  of  his  family. 

In  writing  the  novel  of  “  Charlotte  Temple,”  Mrs.  Row- 
son  adhered  very  strictly  to  her  facts.  The  names  of  the  real 
actors  in  her  story,  and  the  fact  of  Charlotte’s  connection 
with  the  Stanleys,  are  now  put  in  print  for  the  first  time. 
I  delayed  the  printing  of  my  manuscript  for  a  while, 
hoping  to  discover  one  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  “  The 
Coquette,”  and  to  be  able  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
this  work  of  the  imagination  was  at  once  accepted  as  a 
veritable  history.  I  was  not  successful,  and  what  little  I 
have  been  able  to  gather  from  the  “  children’s  children” 
of  the  author  I  will  state  here. 

Mrs.  Forster  was  Hannah,  daughter  of  Grant  Webster, 
celebrated  in  her  youth  for  both  wit  and  beauty.  Dr. 
Forster’s  attention  was  first  drawn  to  her  by  her  political 
articles  in  the  newspapers.  It  would  be  a  pleasant  pict¬ 
ure  of  the  olden  time,  if  I  could  paint  the  scene,  as  the 


Vlll 


PREFACE. 


whole  parish  at  “  Little  Cambridge  ”  turned  out,  ceremoni¬ 
ously,  to  greet  his  bride  when  he  took  her  home. 

It  is  believed  that  the  first  edition  of  “  The  Coquette” 
was  issued  about  the  year  1800,  twelve  years  after  Eliza’s 
death.  There  is  little  doubt  that  Mr.  Boyer,  Major  San¬ 
ford,  and  others  were  characters  carefully  studied  from 
the  life,  and  immediately  recognized  ;  but  Mrs.  Forster 
was  a  woman  of  vivid  imagination,  and  certainly  made 
no  attempt  to  adhere  to  the  facts  of  the  story,  if  she  had 
ever  known  them. 

That  the  tale,  as  I  tell  it,  seems  almost  like  a  bit  of  au¬ 
tobiography,  I  am  well  aware  :  I  make  no  apology  for  it. 
Psychologically  the  whole  train  of  events  forms  a  curious 
study  ;  and,  when  I  look  back  upon  it,  it  amuses  me  to  see 
how  easily  a  little  more  of  indolence,  selfishness,  or  indif¬ 
ference,  on  my  part,  might  have  altered  the  whole  course 
of  the  story.  More  indolent,  I  should  never  have  possessed 
myself  of  Eliza’s  letters  ;  more  selfish,  I  should  have  taken 
no  heed  to  Mrs.  Burton’s  request ;  and  then,  what  refresh¬ 
ment,  pleasure,  and  surprise  not  only  I  but  many  others 
must  have  missed  !  None  of  those  who  went  to  Salis¬ 
bury  on  the  20th  of  August,  1S74,  will  ever  forget  the 
tremulous  excitement  which  changed  for  the  nonce  the 
“Man  of  Science”  to  the  “  Man  of  Feeling.” 

To  those  accustomed  to  old  letters,  Eliza’s  will  seem 
bright,  innocent,  and  helpful ;  others  may  misunderstand 
them,  but  to  be  misunderstood  is  the  risk  and  the  fate  of 
almost  every  creature. 

It  has  seemed  best  to  preserve  the  real  names  of  most 
of  the  actors  in  a  narrative  so  privately  printed.  I  trust 
to  the  kindness  of  those  whose  sharp  eyes  may  pierce 
the  half-worn  veil  to  take  no  ungenerous  advantage  of 
that  fact. 

CAROLINE  H.  DALL. 

141  Warren  Avenue,  Boston, 

March  1,  1S75. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction . xi 

Part  I.  Separation . i 

,,  II.  Reunion . 29 

,,  III.  The  Story  and  the  Letter.  ...  63 


INTRODUCTION. 


I  remember  that  one  moist,  warm  summer  morn¬ 
ing,  when  I  was  a  little  girl,  I  wandered  into  an  old 
orchard  before  the  sun  had  risen.  The  air  seemed 
full  of  loose  silver  threads,  floating  and  swaying, 
the  aerial  clues  flung  out  by  adventurous  spiders 
seeking  the  day’s  fortune. 

Near  me  was  a  bare  limb  of  a  half-dead  apple- 
tree ;  and,  while  I  looked  and  wondered,  many  of 
these  clues  attached  themselves  to  the  splitting  bark, 
and  the  proprietors  of  these  "ropewalks  in  the  air” 
began  to  pull  their  cables  in,  and  to  run  back  and 
forth,  clearing  away  superfluous  knots,  yet  holding 
safe  the  diamond  setting  of  their  silver  chains. 

They  were  natives  of  many  far-sundered  homes  : 
there  was  the  big  wood  spider,  clad  in  a  heavy 
set  of  winter  furs,  first  cousin  to  the  tarantula  ;  the 
spotted  mite,  terror  of  nursery  beds ;  the  loose- 
jointed  " spinner,”  full  of  nursery  cares;  but,  how¬ 
ever  they  looked  and  whatever  they  did,  each  was 
a  deft  workman,  and  kept  unsullied  the  charm  of 
the  new-born  day. 


Xll 


INTRODUCTION. 


Why  should  all  those  tiny  threads  have  floated  to 
that  one  branch  ? 

I  asked  myself  again  and  again,  but  I  could  not 
tell.  Perhaps  it  was  because  the  branch  was  bare, 
and  had  no  proper  function  of  its  own.  Perhaps 
its  purposeless  existence  left  it  free,  to  entertain  the 
vagaries  of  its  many-legged  visitors. 

For  some  such  reason,  it  may  be,  the  threads  of 
the  following  story  floated  before  my  asking  eyes, 
and  have  been  gathered  into  my  waiting  hand. 

Because  I  would  not  shake  the  dew-drops  from 
the  web,  I  tell  the  story  in  my  proper  person. 


PART  I.  — SEPARATION. 


‘  What  is  jour  substance,  whereof  are  you  made 
That  millions  of  strange  shadows  on  you  tend?” 

53 d  Sonnet.  Shakspere. 

‘  If  there  be  nothing  new,  but  that  which  is 
Hath  been  before,  —  how  are  our  brains  beguil’d  ! 
Which,  laboring  for  invention,  bear  amiss 
The  second  burthen  of  a  former  child.” 


59 tk  Sonnet. 


I. 


VERYBODY  smiled  a  little  incredulously  the 


other  day  when  I  said,  innocently  enough, 
that  probably  we  had  here  in  Boston  the  only 
portrait  of  Shakspere  that  could  be  proved  to  be 
painted  from  the  life,  —  the  portrait  painted  by 
Frederico  Zucchero  for  the  old  Globe  Tavern. 

Before  I  had  time  to  prove  my  words,  the  only 
remaining  personal  relic  of  the  great  poet  followed 
the  picture.  The  gloves  which  Garrick  received 
from  one  of  the  Harts  at  Stratford,  which  he  left 
to  his  wife  as  his  chief  treasure,  and  which  she 
afterwards  gave  to  Mrs.  Siddons,  Fanny  Kemble 
—  the  only  woman  who  ever  had  a  right  to  wear 
them  —  has  now  sent  in  friendly  sympathy  to 
Horace  Furness. 

If  Betterton  had  been  a  little  wiser,  he  might 
have  sought  in  other  places  than  Stratford  for  news 
of  the  dead  poet.  There  his  Puritan  relatives  felt 
themselves  disgraced  by  his  fame ;  they  hid  his 


4 


SEPARATION. 


papers,  and  would  not  consent  to  the  publication 
of  his  immortal  plays,  —  the  only  reason  why  we 
got  them  first  from  the  stage  itself. 

The  "preacher  at  New  Place,”  daintily  enter¬ 
tained  with  the  Stratford  publicans’  "best  ale  and 
sacke,”  did  his  work  well ;  and,  gentle  and  catholic 
as  the  singer  of  Avon  might  be,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  those  nearest  to  him  in  the  world  were  fanat¬ 
ics  in  the  new  faith.  Charles  Hart,  who  fought  at 
Edgehill  and  was  the  best  tragic  actor  of  his  time, 
alone  justified  the  tenderness  shown  by  Shakspere 
to  the  kin  of  his  sister  Joan  by  a  just  pride  in  the 
great  plays. 

But,  in  Betterton’s  time,  there  were  traces  just 
across  the  sea. 

Before  me,  as  I  write,  is  a  picture  of  Hamlet, 
copied  from  one  ‘hanging  in  the  Royal  Gallery  at 
Copenhagen,  which  the  Danish  tradition  tells  us 
Shakspere  himself  saw  before  he  wrote  his  play  ; 
and  very  easy  to  believe  this  any  one  will  find  it 
who  looks  at  the  speculative  eyes,  undecided  mouth, 
and  inky  cloak  of  this  portrait,  painted  in  the  twelfth 
century. 

It  was  on  this  journey  also,  the  Wurtembergers 
tell  us,  that  Duke  Frederick,  who  had  made  the  ac¬ 
quaintance  of  Bacon,  Raleigh,  and  Ben  Jonson,  at 
Elizabeth's  court,  heard  of  Shakspere  in  the  Low 
Countries,  and  summoned  him  to  Frankfort,  hang¬ 
ing  a  gold  chain  about  the  poet’s  neck  after  he  had 


SEPARATION. 


5 


given  Romeo  and  Juliet  in  the  New  Palace,  through 
the  broad  halls  of  which  a  span  of  horses  might  have 
been  driven  to  his  chamber  door,  and  where,  in  the 
month  of  May,  1597,  he  found  the  first  suggestion  of 
the  "Midsummer  Night’s  Dream,”  and  held  a  Latin 
debate  with  the  old  schoolmaster  whom  he  was  to 
immortalize  as  Quarles. 

This  pretty  story  is  told  by  those  who  have  been 
long  attached  to  the  ducal  court.  If  Betterton  had 
looked,  he  might  have  found  its  fresh  traces. 

But  it  never  would  have  occurred  to  Betterton 
to  cross  the  Atlantic  with  Shakspere’s  "  kinsfolk 
and  acquaintance,”  nor  to  Garrick  long  after ;  and 
yet,  possibly  as  late  as  Garrick’s  time,  such  traces 
might  have  been  found  along  our  own  Connecticut 
River. 

Dr.  Hall,  who  married  the  great  poet’s  favorite 
daughter,  was  a  Puritan  of  the  "strictest  lace,”  yet 
so  "wise  was  he  in  all  appertaining  to  his  craft, 
that  the  gentry  were  forced  to  have  him  in  their 
straits,”  wrote  Drake,  commenting  on  his  post¬ 
humous  medical  work. 

Fanatic  though  Hall  might  be,  he  had  loved  his 
great  father-in-law ;  for,  in  that  epitaph  upon  his 
wife  which  Dugdale  copied,  he  speaks  of  her  as 
like  her  father  in  both  wit  and  piety,  and  still  more 
in  the  heart  that  "  wept  with  all,”  and  was  not  con¬ 
tented  to  weep  only,  but  set  itself  to  cheer  with 
"comforts  cordiall.”  Surely,  kith  and  kin,  and 


6 


SEPARA  T10N. 


brethren  in  the  faith,  emigrating  from  Stratford 
and  its  neighborhood,  within  fourteen  years  of 
Shakspere’s  death,  must  sometime  have  heard  the 
poet’s  name  in  the  household  of  "  good  Mistress 
Hall  ”  ? 

Who,  then,  were  Edmund  and  Stephen  Hart, 
who  crossed  the  Atlantic  in  the  "John  and  Mary” 
in  1634,  in  company  with  Thomas  Greene  and 
Thomas  Stanley,  all  of  whom  are  found  soon  after 
with  Hooker  at  Hartford?  Stephen  Hart  went  to 
Farmington,  but  on  the  old  maps  we  find  "  Hart’s 
Ford”  where  the  modern  city  stands.  These  Harts 
were  younger  than  Shakspere’s  nephews  ;  yet,  as 
they  were  Puritan,  there  is  no  certainty  that  the 
children  of  Joan  Shakspere  died  childless  because 
the  register  is  silent.  If  of  kin  to  that  William 
Hart  who  married  Joan  Shakspere,  might  not 
this  very  Edmund  have  been  named  for  the 
"player”  whom  the  great  poet  buried  so  proudly 
at  St.  Savior’s  ;  and  may  not  Thomas  Greene  have 
been  the  grandson  at  least  of  that  Thomas  who 
was  buried  at  Stratford,  March  6,  1589,  —  Thomas 
Greene,  alias  Shakspere? 

These  are  not  mere  idle  fancies ;  for,  in  the  first 
place,  our  tale  goes  back  to  Shakspere’s  time, 
and,  in  the  next,  we  know  certain  things  of  the 
Thomas  Stanley  who  came  with  these  men,  and 
went  with  them  to  Hartford,  which  give  us  leave 
to  entertain  these  questions. 


SEPARA  TION. 


,  7 

The  answers  probably  perished,  when  the  old 
parsonage  of  Elnathan  Whitman,  containing  the 
most  valuable  collection  of  papers  in  Connecticut, 
was  burned  at  Hartford,  in  1831  ;  but  from  these 
three  names  are  descended  many  of  the  most  dis¬ 
tinguished  citizens  of  that  State.  The  Hookers,  the 
Wadsworths,  and  the  Porters  all  carry  Stanley 
blood ;  the  Lees  are  the  descendants  of  Stephen 
Hart ;  and  the  old  graveyard  still  shows  the  name 
of  Bennet,  wife  of  Thomas  Stanley;  who  was  born 
in  1600. 

In  Shropshire,  not  very  far  away  from  Stratford, 
is  the  old  "Thong  Church,”  built  on  the  land  which 
Hengist  begged  of  Vortigern,  promising  to  cover  it 
all  with  "an  ox-hide,”  which  he  shrewdly  cut  into 
thongs. 

There  lies  the  body  of  Thomas  Stanley,  second 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Derby',  beneath  an  inscription 
which  Dugdale  tells  us  Shakspere  wrote,  and 
indeed  when  we  read  in  the  last  line,  that  — 

“  Standley,  for  whom  this  stands,  shall  stand  in  Heaven,” 

we  seem  to  recognize  the  quaint  speech,  nor  did 
it  much  astonish  me  to  hear  it  recited  byr  the  last 
of  the  direct  Stanley  line  in  Hartford  the  other 
day,  with  this  information  added,  — 

"This  was  what  John  Milton  thought  of  when 
he  wrote  his  famous  epitaph  on  Shakspere,  for 
when  he  sings,  — 


8 


SEP  A  RA  TION. 


“  What  needs  m3'  Shakspere  for  his  honored  bones, 

The  labor  of  an  age  in  pilfed  stones, 

Or  that  his  hallowed  reliques  should  be  hid 
Under  a  star-j'-pointing  pyramid  ” 

he  merely  quotes  what  Shakspere  had  said  of 
Stanley,  — 

“Not  monumental  stone  preserves  our  fame, 

Nor  star-j'-pointing  pj'ramid  our  name, 

The  memorj'  of  him  for  whom  this  stands 
Shall  outlive  marble  and  defacer’s  hands.” 

It  will  be  seen  that  "  star-y-pointing  ”  has  been 
deftly  substituted  for  "  skye-aspiring  ”  in  this  tradi¬ 
tional  Connecticut  version. 

But  we  must  not  hurry  away  from  "  Thong 
Church.”  Here,  soon  after  "  Thomas  Stanley  ” 
was  laid  to  rest,  a  daughter  of  Thomas  Harris 
married  William  Pierrepont,  last  Duke  of  Kingston  ; 
and  the  dust  beneath  the  monumental  slabs  of  that 
race  was  to  rise  again  in  the  New  England  in  a 
form  of  grace  and  beauty,  which  brought  poetr}'  into 
the  arid  pages  of  Jonathan  Edwards  when  Sarah 
Pierrepont  was  only  a  child  of  fourteen,  and  her 
family  and  that  of  the  Stanleys,  in  the  new  land, 
were  to  work  fresh  woe  for  each  other. 

"  Thomas  Stanley,  of  more  consequence  than 
most,  came  to  Hartford  in  1636,”  wrote  James  Savage 
years  ago. 

Stanley  had  buried  a  young  brother  at  sea ;  he 
brought  with  him  a  curious  old  silver  salver  and 
chiselled  tea-service  which  attested  his  kinship  to 


SEPARA  TION. 


9 


that  Thomas  who  called  Shakspere  friend.  His 
silver  spoons  bore  the  same  crest  as  the  old  tomb, 
and  proud  were  the  men  and  fair  the  women  of 
his  line.  He  was  himself  one  of  the  Governor’s 
assistants,  and  died  early.  It  was  his  great  grand¬ 
son,  Nathaniel  Stanley,  Treasurer  of  the  Colony  of 
Connecticut,  who  in  1750  gave  his  daughter  Abi¬ 
gail  in  marriage,  at  Hartford,  to  the  Rev.  Elnathan 
Whitman,  pastor  of  the  Second  Church,  and  one 
of  the  Fellows  of  the  Corporation  of  Yale  College, 
—  a  man  distinguished  for  scholarly  traits,  for  the 
love  of  rare  manuscripts  and  forgotten  books,  and 
whose  library  at  the  time  of  its  destruction  was 
the  envy  of  many  a  college. 

And  here  I  pause,  with  the  first  faint  conscious¬ 
ness  of  what  I  have  undertaken. 

To  revive  the  memory  of  a  dead  tale? 

Not  dead  :  for,  even  while  I  write,  the  newspapers 
tell  of  new  editions  of  the  well-known  stories  of  "Cla¬ 
rissa  Harlowe,”  "Charlotte  Temple,”  and  "Eliza 
Wharton,”  and,  in  less  than  a  week  after  its  first  an¬ 
nouncement,  an  order  sent  to  Philadelphia  for  the  last 
book  is  returned  with  the  words,  "  not  one  copy  left  ”  ! 

"Clarissa  Harlowe”  has  been  called  a  masterly 
book  ;  but  for  the  present  generation  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  cut  its  eight  volumes  of  horror 
down  to  one,  and  so  unnatural  and  impossible  do 
its  situations  appear,  that  more  than  once  the  single 
volume  is  laid  aside  with  a  shudder. 


3 


IO 


SEPARA  TION. 


Can  it  be  possible  that  this  cruel  story  really  rep¬ 
resents  society  which  existed  but  little  more  than  a  cen¬ 
tury  ago  ?  Did  parental  tyranny,  fraternal  censorship, 
and  social  abandonment,  really  reach  such  a  height 
in  the  very  year  which  gave  Eliza  Wharton  birth? 
If  so,  the  reverses  of  that  unfortunate  woman  are 
the  more  easily  understood,  and  it  becomes  less 
impossible  to  believe  that  a  woman  connected  with 
her  by  marriage,  and  herself  gifted  and  good,  should 
have  found  it  necessary  to  point  a  moral  with  the 
sad  story  of  her  life. 

Although  I  do  not  mean  to  dwell  at  this  moment 
on  any  details,  either  actual  or  assumed,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  pointing  out  the  singular  circumstance 
that  the  first  two  American  fictions —  and,  so  far  as 
I  know,  the  fictions  which  have  had  the  largest  and 
steadiest  sale,  up  to  the  publication  of  "Uncle 
Tom’s  Cabin,”  and  a  very  large  sale  since  that 
time  —  have  been  founded  upon  the  real  histories  of 
two  lovely  women  of  the  Stanley  blood,  descend¬ 
ants  of  the  Great  Earl,  King  of  Man,  and  Char¬ 
lotte  de  la  Tremouille. 

Did  they  inherit,  with  her  beauty  and  grace,  some 
restless  blood  which  had  surged  through  all  the 
tumults  of  the  Fronde,  or  battled  loyally  for  the 
rights  of  the  Pretender? 

"Charlotte  Temple,”  although  first  published  in 
London  I  believe  in  1790,  was  immediately  re¬ 
printed  in  this  country.  It  was  written  by  Susanna 
Haswell  Rowson,  born  in  England,  but  brought 


SEP  All  A  TION. 


II 


early  to  America,  and  endeared  to  hundreds  of  our 
most  eminent  women  as  the  principal  of  a  girls’ 
school,  which  wras  at  the  head  of  all  institutions  of 
the  kind  in  New  England  for  twenty-five  years. 
"Charlotte  Temple  ”  wras  in  reality  Charlotte  Stanley, 
the  granddaughter  of  the  Earl  of  Derby  by  a  son 
whom  he  had  disinherited. 

Mrs.  Rowson  wrote  her  story  with  deep  feel¬ 
ing  ;  for  the  man  who  abandoned  her  heroine  was 
Colonel  John  Montressor  of  the  British  service,  one 
of  the  author’s  own  kinsmen. 

It  is  still  possible  to  read  "Charlotte  Temple” 
with  pleasure ;  but  the  extraordinary  sale  of  the 
book  is  only  to  be  explained  by  the  well-known 
truth  of  the  facts,  and  the  romantic  interest  attached 
to  the  consequences  of  Montressor’s  sin. 

Charlotte  may  have  been  beautiful  and  winning ; 
but  only  her  extreme  youth,  and  the  simple  habits 
of  the  English  parsonage  in  which  she  was  reared, 
could  excuse  the  folly  of  her  life.  Cruelly  aban¬ 
doned  by  her  lover  in  the  city  of  New  York,  she 
drank  patiently  the  bitter  cup  she  had  filled  for 
herself;  and  the  loving  hands  of  an  American 
woman  of  unquestioned  rank  and  purity  laid  her 
in  the  grave  at  the  early  age  of  nineteen. 

About  twenty  feet  north  of  the  upper  entrance  to 
Trinity  Church,  and  not  more  than  twelve  from  the 
living  tide  which  surges  through  Broadway,  a 
broad  brown  stone,  bedded  in  the  sward,  bears 


12 


SEPARATION. 


the  name  of  "Charlotte  Temple,”  to  which  Mrs. 
Rowson’s  pen  had  given  a  distinction  that  "  Stan¬ 
ley  ”  could  not  boast. 

But  romance  did  not  die  with  Charlotte.  The 
child  she  left,  and  which  she  gave  to  her  father  in 
her  dying  moments,  was  adopted  by  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Grice  Blakeney,  of  the  14th  Royal  Dra¬ 
goons.  Mr.  Stanley,  who  had  gone  to  New  York 
in  search  of  his  child,  died  of  grief  soon  after  his 
return  from  America,  and  his  wife  soon  followed 
him.  Lucy  Blakeney  inherited  a  handsome  for¬ 
tune  from  her  adopted  father.  Colonel  Montressor 
had  married  in  the  city  of  New  York  before  the 
death  of  his  victim.  He  took  his  wife’s  name 
for  reasons  connected  with  her  family  property ; 
and  so,  unsuspected  by  all  the  parties,  his  oldest 
legitimate  son,  some  twenty  years  after,  engaged 
himself  in  marriage  to  Lucy  Blakeney,  a  girl  of 
sterling  strength  and  principle.  At  the  time  when 
they  exchanged  .promises,  Colonel  Montressor  was 
ill.  His  son  was  summoned  to  his  death-bed  at 
the  very  moment  of  betrothal.  The  dying  man 
was  impatient  to  see  the  face  of  the  young  girl  who 
would  soon  have  been  his  daughter.  There  was 
no  portrait  of  Lucy,  but  her  resemblance  to  Char¬ 
lotte  was  perfect,  and  it  was  a  miniature  of  her 
mother,  taken  for  Colonel  Montressor  himself,  that 
the  young  man  held  before  his  father’s  horror- 
stricken  and  dying  eyes  ! 


SEPARA  TION. 


13 


In  the  course  of  time  the  lover  married,  but 
Lucy  devoted  her  remaining  years  to  works  of 
charity.  In  1810  she  came  to  this  country,  and 
visited  the  friends  and  the  grave  of  her  mother. 
The  quarterings  of  the  house  of  Derby,  with  the 
date  of  Charlotte’s  birth  and  death,  were  then  set 
into  the  brown  stone,  on  a  heavy  silver  plate ;  but 
it  did  not  long  escape  the  greedy  clutch  of  street 
thieves. 

Mrs.  Rowson  did  not  fail  to  write  out  this 
"Sequel”  to  Charlotte’s  story;  and,  after  her  death 
in  1828,  it  was  published.  It  has  never  lost  its  hold 
on  the  public  mind ;  and  a  new  edition  of  the  two 
stories,  wretchedly  printed,  in  1874  finds  as  many 
readers  as  that  of  1790. 

Charlotte  Stanley  was  a  near  cousin  of  Abigail, 
the  mother  of  Eliza  Wharton  ;  but  far  deeper  in  its 
hold  upon  the  popular  heart  was  the  novel  which 
told  the  story  of  the  beautiful  Connecticut  girl. 

Charlotte  was  the  lost  treasure  of  a  ducal  house, 
and  her  grave  lies  comparatively  desolate  in  the 
streets  of  a  great  city ;  but  the  strength  and  beauty 
of  Eliza’s  character  have  kept  her  memory  green 
even  under  the  suspicion  of  a  great  error.  She,  too, 
was  the  daughter  of  a  clergyman,  the  honored  Puri¬ 
tan  minister  of  a  provincial  town.  Her  grave  lies 
in  an  obscure  country  village  where  no  living  flesh 
has  ever  called  hers  kin,  yet  her  grave  stone  is 
battered  to  the  sod  by  the  loving  blows  of  those 


J4 


SEPARATION. 


who  would  keep  some  relic  of  that  brave  heart 
which,  through  despair  and  death,  kept  faith  with  a 
faithless  lover;  and,  in  the  greenest  summer  grass, 
the  constant  tread  of  pilgrim  feet  still  writes  her 
name  into  the  soil  in  characters  more  lasting  than 
those  upon  the  stone. 

Eliza  inherited  all  the  grace  and  culture  of  the 
Stanley  blood. 

Her  maternal  ancestor,  Thomas  Stanley,  had  kept 
and  transmitted  the  record  of  Shaksperian  friend¬ 
ships  ;  and  her  mother,  Abigail  Stanley,  was  a 
woman  whose  portrait,  now  hanging  in  the  Hart¬ 
ford  Athenaeum,  bears  witness  to  the  rare  intelli¬ 
gence  she  bequeathed  with  her  beauty.  Her  father 
was  a  man  of  prominent  and  significant  character. 
Connected  with  Yale  College  from  his  youth,  re¬ 
lated  to  all  the  State  dignitaries  by  his  marriage, 
his  own  descent  from  the  Stoddards,  made  Eliza 
cousin  to  the  poet  Trumbull,  to  Jeremiah  Wads¬ 
worth, —  the  wealthy  benefactor  of  Hartford,  —  to 
Pierrepont  Edwards,  and  Joseph  Buckminster.  His 
learning  and  antiquarian  tastes  brought  him  the 
warm  friendship  of  young  men  like  Barlow,  Bald¬ 
win,  and  Dwight,  and  those  college  lads  who  after¬ 
ward  became  the  well-known  "  Club  of  Hartford 
Wits.” 

Eliza  Wharton  was  born  into  the  best  society  of 
her  State  and  time.  Without  the  aid  of  wealth  she 
won,  through  her  beauty  and  gentleness,  a  wide  dis- 


SEPARATION. 


15 


tinction,  —  a  distinction  never  equalled  in  its  kind  in 
this  country. 

Hereafter  I  shall  speak  of  the  novel  which  bears 
her  name :  here  I  would  only  draw  attention  to 
the  fact  that  it  was  by  the  great  wealth  of  her 
intellect  and  the  generosity  of  her  sympathies, 
even  more  than  by  her  personal  beauty,  that  Eliza 
won  her  early  triumphs,  and  attracted  towards 
her  all  that  was  distinguished  among  the  young 
men  of  the  college  and  the  State. 

Her  first  accepted  lover  was  the  Rev.  Joseph 
Howe,  of  Church  Green,  in  Boston,  a  young  man  of 
rare  talents.  He  was  driven  from  Boston  at  the 
time  of  the  siege,  and  took  refuge  with  a  party  of 
friends  at  Norwich,  Connecticut.  His  health  failed  ; 
and,  as  the  state  of  the  city  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  return,  Eliza’s  father  invited  him  to  Hart¬ 
ford,  where  he  died,  after  a  long  sickness,  perhaps 
early  in  1 776. 

Eliza  watched  over  his  last  hours  with  tenderness  ; 
but,  as  she  had  loved  him  with  moderation,  she 
mourned  for  him  without  despair.  She  had  been 
early  betrothed  with  her  own  consent,  and  yet  it 
would  seem  chiefly  to  please  those  who  loved  her. 
A  far  more  serious  grief  to  her  was  her  father’s 
death,  which  soon  followed. 

She  had  two  sisters,  Abigail  and  Mary.  They 
both  lived  to  extreme  old  age,  —  Abigail  unmarried, 
and  Mary  as  the  widow  of  a  Mr.  Skinner.  Neither 


1 6 


SEPARATION. 


possessed  any  remarkable  share  of  beauty  or  intel¬ 
lect. 

Her  only  brother  was  preparing  for  college  at  the 
time  of  his  father’s  death,  and  in  more  than  one  of 
her  letters  she  expresses  a  thoughtful  and  tender 
anxiety  about  his  future.  The  family  should  have 
been  wealthy,  but  William  Stanley,  her  mother’s 
brother,  was  persuaded  to  leave  a  large  property  to 
the  church  of  which  her  father  had  been  pastor. 
The  estate,  including  some  of  the  finest  land  in 
Hartford,  has  been  once  before  the  courts,  and  it  is 
rumored  is  soon  to  be  put  into  litigation  again.  It 
is  now  worth  between  three  and  four  millions  ;  and 
collateral  heirs  claim  it,  on  the  ground  that  the 
terms  of  the  bequest  are  no  longer  complied  with. 

In  this  way  it  came  to  pass  that  the  famity  of  the 
old  minister  were  seriously  embarrassed  by  the 
loss  of  his  salary;  and,  perhaps  for  that  reason, 
Eliza  was  again  urged  to  marry,  and  this  time  her 
lover  was  one  whose  name  and  memory  are  dis¬ 
tinctly  stamped  upon  the  Congregational  Churches 
of  New  England. 

The  Rev.  Joseph  Buckminster,  afterward  settled 
at  Portsmouth,  N.H.,  was  now  a  tutor  at  Yale, 
where  he  had  been  educated.  Eliza  had  relatives 
and  friends  in  New  Haven,  and  a  visit  to  the  Presi¬ 
dent’s  family  was  urged  as  a  relief  from  the  depres¬ 
sion  into  which  she  had  naturally  fallen.  The 
unusual  stimulus  restored  her  fine  spirits,  admira- 


SEP  All  A  TION. 


17 


tion  followed  her  every  movement  and  her  lightest 
word.  She  did  not  belong  to  the  country  or  the 
century  into  which  she  had  been  born,  and  when 
the  equivocal  admiration  of  Aaron  Burr,  Pierre- 
pont  Edwards,  and  foreign  secretaries  was  added  to 
the  reverent  affection  of  the  finest  young  men  in  the 
ministry,  it  was  quite  natural  that  the  source  of  her 
extraordinary  power  should  be  questioned  by  the 
Puritan  women  of  her  coterie. 

I  make  the  suggestion  of  this  possibility  here,  be¬ 
cause,  in  addition  to  the  fact  that  she  was  beloved 
to  the  very  end  by  some  very  noble  women,  the 
closest  scrutiny  of  the  past  fails  to  discover  in  her 
character  any  evidence  of  that  coquetry  which  the 
novel  has  attached  to  her  name. 

She  shrank  from  the  love  of  Buckminster,  — 
although  there  is  no  doubt  that  she  returned  it,  — 
not  only  from  an  indisposition  to  cope  with  his 
terrible  hypochondria,  but  because  she  felt  that  its 
acceptance  would  bind  her  to  a  narrow  field  of 
duty,  and  require  of  her  an  abstinence  and  self- 
renunciation  fatal  to  her  best  development. 

There  was  an  absolute  wrant  of  sympathy  for  her 
in  her  own  home  after  her  father’s  death,  and  this 
circumstance  gradually  conquered  her  reluctance. 
"  I  don’t  think  I  should  grieve  if  I  did  not  see  a 
Wharton  for  some  months,”  she  wrote  once.  She 
made  up  her  mind  to  accept  Buckminster,  but 
against  the  counsel  of  many  of  her  younger  friends, 


i8 


SEPARA  TION. 


and  she  discussed  the  matter  thoroughly  with  some 
of  her  kindred,  men  of  the  world,  who  had  a  wider 
out-look  into  the  future  than  her  lover  could  boast. 

To  one  of  these,  her  cousin,  but  a  man  whose 
personal  character  was  wholly  disapproved  by  her 
lover,  she  was  explaining  her  reasons  for  this  step 
when  he  surprised  them  both.  He  had  come  for 
his  final  answer,  and  found  her  in  the  arbor  con¬ 
fiding  in  a  man  he  hated.  He  retreated  in  dis¬ 
pleasure,  which  he  would  not  allow  to  abate. 

After  waiting  a  reasonable  time,  she  wrote  to  him, 
and  told  him  that  she  could  not  be  happy  unless 
he  knew  how  she  was  employed  when  he  surprised 
her,  and  what  she  had  intended  her  answer  to  be. 
The  reply  was  the  announcement  of  his  approach¬ 
ing  marriage,  —  a  marriage  which  did  not  prevent 
him  from  remembering  her  with  tenderness  as  long 
as  he  lived. 

Eliza  Wharton  has  been  accused  of  "  fluctuating 
moods.”  Her  letters  bear  no  trace  of  these,  but 
surely  Fate  never  laid  a  naore  ruthless  hand  upon  a 
young  girl’s  life  !  For  many  years  she  struggled 
on,  unable  to  attach  herself  to  any  who  sought  her 
favor,  but  faithful  to  her  friendships,  active  in  behalf 
of  all  those  who  were  sufferinsr,  and  with  no  sus- 

o  7 

picion  of  the  fatal  future  impending. 

The  latest  letter  of  hers  that  I  possess  was  writ¬ 
ten  in  November,  1782,  and  was  sent  to  Mrs.  Joel 
Barlow.  It  is  full  of  practical  kindness  and  cheer- 


SEPARA  TION. 


J9 


ful  common-sense ;  but  in  some  New-Year’s  verses, 
written  to  Barlow  himself  about  six  weeks  later,  the 
tone  is  sad  in  spite  of  its  generous  kind  wishes. 

Five  years  later,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  she  had 
undoubtedly  linked  her  fate  to  that  of  some  one 
who  hesitated  to  acknowledge  her  publicly. 

Her  health  falters,  her  spirits  are  unequal,  and 
she  passes  nights  away  from  her  own  home  ;  but, 
as  it  afterwards  appeared,  only  with  the  Laurences, 
well-known  neighbors  and  friends. 

One  visitor,  her  cousin  Jeremiah  Wadsworth, 
was  often  seen  leaving  her  society  at  what  the 
neighborhood  called  unseemly  hours ;  and  in  May, 
1788,  she  was  reported  to  have  changed  at  the 
bank  a  large  quantity  of  foreign  gold.  In  the 
midst  of  the  perplexities  occasioned  by  the  state  of 
her  health  and  the  comments  of  the  neighborhood, 
an  invitation  came  to  her  from  Mrs.  Henry  Hill  of 
Boston,  and  was  eagerly  accepted.  She  left  home 
suitably  at  mid-day  in  the  ordinary  Boston  stage¬ 
coach,  but  it  did  not  carry  her  to  her  friend's  house. 
She  probably  alighted  at  Watertown,  where  she 
may  have  delayed  some  days,  and  then  went  to 
the  little  town  of  Danvers,  near  Salem,  where  her 
faded  features  were  hardly  likely  to  be  recognized. 

In  some  pleasant  summer  drive,  accompanied  by 
troops  of  friends,  she  may  have  first  laid  eyes  on 
the  retired  country  inn  and  tranquil  graveyard,  so 
soon  to  become  for  ever  significant  for  her  sake  ! 


20 


SEPARATION. 


Never  more  did  those  who  loved  her  look  upon 
her  eloquent  face. 

For  two  long  months,  Mrs.  Hill  watched  for  her 
guest,  while  the  widowed  mother  patiently  endured 
her  anguish.  Scandal  was  not  yet  busy  with  the 
beloved  name  ;  for,  although  the  strength  of  Puritan 
feeling  found  something  to  condemn  or  comment 
upon  in  Eliza’s  habits,  yet  her  only  questionable 
companions  had  been  her  own  near  relatives,  men 
still  too  young  to  have  an  evil  character  perma¬ 
nently  attached  to  them. 

Then  a  brief  paragraph  in  the  "  Boston  Chroni¬ 
cle”  told  to  aching  hearts  the  whole  story. 

Early  in  June,  she  had  arrived  in  Danvers,  driven 
in  a  chaise  from  Watertown  by  a  boy  whom  she 
had  hired  at  the  coach-house  there.  She  went  to 
the  Bell  Tavern,  giving  her  name  as  a  Mrs. 
Walker,  who  wished  to  wait  there  for  her  hus¬ 
band’s  arrival.  As  the  weeks  went  on,  her  spirits 
sank.  She  walked  frequently  from  her  lodgings 
to  the  graveyard,  —  the  very  spot  where  she  often 
stood,  and  where  her  body  was  afterwards  laid, 
then  commanding  a  pleasant  shady  slope.  In  July, 
1788,  she  gave  birth  to  a  dead  child,  and  died  her¬ 
self,  a  fortnight  later,  not  so  much  of  consumption, 

I 

I  think,  as  a  broken  heart. 

Poor  crushed  flower !  There  was  no  proof,  as  I 
shall  hereafter  show,  if  we  except  vulgar  suspicion, 
that  Eliza  Wharton  sinned  further  than  by  marry- 


SEPARA  TION. 


21 


ing,  possibly  against  counsel,  the  man  whom  she 
loved,  at  the  mature  age  of  thirty-six.  On  what 
pretence  she  was  persuaded  to  conceal  her  mar¬ 
riage,  and  was  so  compelled  to  leave  her  home,  we 
shall  probably  never  know ;  but  the  motive  must 
have  been  a  strong  one.  It  is  certain  that  she  ex¬ 
pected  her  husband  —  it  is  equally  certain  that  he 
sought  her  anxiously  —  in  the  way  she  had  indi¬ 
cated  ;  but,  when  disappointed,  refrained  from  mak¬ 
ing  a  single  inquiry  in  the  town.  Only  a  very 
conspicuous  person,  I  think,  would  have  carried  his 
caution  so  far. 

It  was  not  Mrs.  Henry  Hill,  but  some  still  more 
loving  heart,  that  erected  a  monument  over  that 
lonely  grave.  The  brown  stone  of  the  Portland 
quarries  holds  and  keeps  her  secret,  standing  lonely 
among  the  cold  granite  of  the  eastern  coast. 

Never  once  had  the  dying  creature  lisped  a 
word  of  her  history ;  and  only  a  few  unfinished 
letters  and  poems,  in  her  own  hand  and  written 
from  various  places,  remained  among  her  posses¬ 
sions.  She  had  insisted  that  she  was  married ; 
would  have  her  ring  buried  with  her ;  expressed 
no  sense  of  guilt,  but  a  living  trust  in  God’s  love, 
quite  unintelligible  to  most  people  of  that  genera¬ 
tion. 

When  asked  if  her  friends  might  not  be  sent  for, 
she  said  she  should  soon  go  to  them  ;  but  privately 
she  added  to  one  who  waited  on  her,  that  her  death 


22 


SEPARATION. 


was  wisely  ordered,  and  was  the  easiest  solution  of 
many  problems. 

Her  gravestone  recorded  her  humility  and  be¬ 
nevolence,  and  added,  — 

"Let  candor  throw  a  veil  over  her  frailties,  for 
great  was  her  charity  to  others.” 

After  her  death,  her  family,  which  had  been  so 
beloved  and  so  distinguished,  seemed  to  melt  away. 
The  survivors  lost  all  courage  ;  and,  after  the  death 
of  her  mother  in  1795,  her  childless  sisters  were 
assisted  by  the  parish,  to  which  William  Stanley 
had  so  unwisely  left  his  whole  property. 

The  young  brother  for  whom  Eliza  had  watched 
and  prayed  so  anxiously  was  known  in  his  later 
years  as  an  antiquarian,  the  habitud  of  the  Hart¬ 
ford  Athenaeum. 

Her  death  sobered  his  gay  spirits  ;  and  it  was  not 
until  the  year  1800  that  he  married.  His  wife,  a 
woman  of  the  first  social  standing,  died  in  April, 
1801,  in  giving  birth  to  his  only  child. 

And  here  we  take  our  first  step  into  the  still  un¬ 
published  "  Romance  of  the  Association.” 

The  brother  of  Eliza  Wharton  seemed  only  the 
sadder  for  the  brief  sunshine  which  had  streamed 
over  his  hearth. 

At  the  time  of  his  young  wife’s  death,  a  dear 
friend  of  his  dead  sister,  living  not  far  away,  had 
lost  her  first  baby.  She  had  been  a  Hinsdale, 
cousin  to  Emma  Willard  of  Troy,  to  Aurora 


/ 


SEPARA  TION. 


23 


Phelps,  to  Elihu  and  Elijah  Burritt,  and  many 
more  distinguished  for  intellect  and  power. 

To  her  this  only  scion  of  the  Wharton  family 
was  carried ;  and  in  this  happy  home,  in  the  sim¬ 
plicity  of  her  farm  life,  he  grew  up  until  it  was 
necessary  to  send  him  to  school.  His  foster-mother 
had  nine  children,  and  his  favorite  companion  was 
Harriet,  —  the  little  girl  nearest  his  own  age. 

When  he  went  back  to  Hartford,  he  was  old 
enough  to  worship  the  beautiful  picture  over  his 
father’s  mantel. 

"It  is  your  aunt  Elizabeth,  who  died  before  you 
were  born,”  was  the  answer  to  all  his  curious  ques¬ 
tions.  As  he  grew  older,  he  saw  and  felt  the 
shadow  hanging  over  his  father.  When  he  entered 
college,  the  strange  old  Stanley  silver,  carved  into 
rare  figures  with  a  chisel,  was  pledged  to  a  family 
connexion  to  carry  him  through. 

During  all  these  years,  he  had  kept  up  a  tender 
intimacy  with  his  foster-sister,  who  on  her  side 
thought  him  "  graceful  and  charming  as  Pericles,” 
but  kept,  nevertheless,  to  her  own  anxious  way  in 
life.  It  will  be  seen  that  hers  was  no  common 
career.  Her  father,  prostrated  by  asthma,  passed 
the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life  propped  into  an  arm¬ 
chair.  He  was  wholly  unable  to  support  his  family. 
It  was  Harriet’s  brave  hands  that  lifted  the  mort¬ 
gage  from  his  farm,  built  the  new  house,  and  filled 
it  with  every  comfort  for  the  sick  brothers,  who,  one 


24 


SEP  All  A  TION. 


after  another,  dropped  wearily  out  of  life  as  they 
drew  near  to  manhood.  It  was  she  who  educated 
her  younger  sister,  and  finally  gave  her  in  marriage 
to  the  Hon.  Pinckney  Hill  of  Georgia,  who  em¬ 
igrated  to  Texas,  where  his  two  sons  are  now  dis¬ 
tinguished  lawyers. 

It  was  Harriet  who  opened  the  well-known  Acad¬ 
emy  at  Selma,  after  a  perilous  journey  through  the 
country  of  the  Creeks.  Here  she  married,  and 
her  husband,  associating  himself  with  Mr.  Hill  in 
the  practice  of  the  law,  removed  with  her  to  Texas. 

Twice  shipwrecked,  with  an  infant  only  five 
months  old  in  her  arms,  this  heroic  woman,  res¬ 
cued  by  a  British  brig,  was  thrown  upon  the  island 
of  Galveston.  It  was  in  keeping  with  her  whole 
story  that  it  should  be  just  a  week  after  a  tornado 
had  laid  every  roof  in  the  town  flat.  Here  she  was 
tenderly  nursed  by  some  of  La  Fitte’s  pirates, 
who  had  been  pardoned  by  our  government  for 
services  rendered  to  General  Jackson  at  New 
Orleans. 

All  the  books,  stationery,  and  provisions  the  emi¬ 
grants  had  provided  for  a  two  years’  stay,  were 
thrown  overboard  at  the  time  of  the  wreck.  A 
little  money  in  a  belt  about  his  waist  Harriet’s  hus¬ 
band  had  saved  ;  and  so  at  last  they  made  their  way 
to  Bastrop,  where  they  lived  six  happy  prosperous 
months  before  the  Comanches  broke  in  upon  their 
peace. 


SEPARA  TION. 


25 


Young  friends  came  out  from  Connecticut  to  join 
them  ;  and  one  night,  when  her  husband  was  away 
at  court,  Harriet  opened  her  gate  to  admit  one 
dying  man,  while  the  dead  body  of  his  companion 
lay  scalped  and  bleeding  a  little  farther  away  in 
the  grass. 

A  dozen  romances  are  wrapt  in  this  brave  woman’s 
life,  but  it  is  not  mine  to  relate  them. 

I  hurry  through  this  night,  when,  having  rushed 
in  the  darkness  to  summon  the  guard,  she  is  brought 
back  to  watch  by  the  dying  and  the  dead,  her  wail¬ 
ing  child  within  her  arms.  I  hurry  through  the  three 
years  of  starvation  and  terror  —  when,  all  escape  to 
the  coast  cut  oft'  by  prowling  bands,  they  endured 
until  endurance  was  no  longer  possible  —  to  the 
morning  when  her  husband  said,  — 

"  Harriet,  death  is  here,  and  it  is  yonder ;  but,  if 
you  will  risk  it,  I  will  start  for  the  coast.” 

And  they  started,  the  suffering  child  nestled  in 
their  wraps,  lying  on  blankets  under  the  wagon  at 
night,  creeping  slowly  through  the  tall  grass  by 
day,  until  at  last  the  lights  of  Galveston  shone 
through  the  gathering  dusk.  Then  the  overtaxed 
nerves  gave  way,  and  very  soon  the  poor  young 
mother  must  be  sent  back  to  Hartford  to  rest. 

Disappointed  in  these  more  ambitious  hopes,  her 
husband  went  back  to  Alabama,  and  laid  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  a  seminary  for  both  sexes,  which  for  twenty- 
five  years  had  no  equal  in  the  South.  Here,  old 

4 


26 


SEPARATION. 


friends  welcomed  Harriet  back.  The  years  went 
on  :  her  husband  died  of  yellow-fever ;  five  little 
ones  were  laid  away  among  the  magnolias  in  the 
graveyard ;  and,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  two  of 
Sherman’s  raids  turned  the  seminary  into  barracks, 
and  destroyed  the  noble  prosperity  she  had  been 
half  a  century  in  accumulating. 

One  daughter  who  had  survived  these  horrors,  and 
was  both  beautiful  and  accomplished,  had  a  pleasant 
home  in  New  Orleans. 

Here  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  more  than 
sixty  years  old,  our  brave  Harriet  went,  just  in 
time  to  receive  a  little  granddaughter  and  accept 
its  mother’s  last  sigh.  Here  in  poverty,  isolation, 
and  sorrow,  she  chanced  upon  an  old  copy  of 
"Eliza  Wharton.”  In  the  preface  to  this  edition, 
printed  in  1855,  a  so-called  history  of  Eliza’s  family 
was  given,  and  in  it  she  saw  recorded  the  death  of 
her  foster-brother  in  a  far-off  city.  The  family 
was  said  to  be  extinct. 

The  boy  who  had  shared  her  nursery  had  never 
married.  When  Harriet  left  home,  he  was  still 
studying  law.  Soon  after,  the  old  parsonage  was 
burned  down,  his  father  barely  escaping  with  his 
life.  The  magnificent  collection  of  manuscripts  for 
which  his  grandfather  had  been  famous,  perished  ; 
and,  when  the  young  man  shook  the  dust  from  his 
feet  and  turned  away  from  Hartford,  he  carried,  for 
his  sole  inheritance,  an  exquisite  miniature  upon 


SEPARATION. 


27 


ivory  of  his  Aunt  Elizabeth ;  a  ring  of  amethyst 
set  in  diamonds,  which  Buckminster  had  given  her, 
—  which  was  never  worn  and  probably  forgotten 
by  both,  —  a  dozen  old  Stanley  spoons  bearing  the 
Derby  crest,  and  the  ewer  and  sugar  basin  cut  with 
the  chisel,  that  still  told  of  the  ancient  tea-service 
never  yet  reclaimed. 

Harriet  had  seen  him  from  time  to  time  as  she 
went  home  to  her  dying  brothers,  to  her  father  and 
mother.  In  the  hurried  years  of  the  civil  war, 
letters  were  impossible ;  and  now,  as  she  read  the 
record  of  his  death  by  her  daughter’s  new-made 
grave,  she  wept  with  a  fresh  sense  of  loneliness. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  "graceful  and  accom¬ 
plished  Pericles  ”  had  easily  cut  his  way  through 
the  world.  He  turned  southward  from  the  city 
which  he  hated,  out  of  which  his  home  had  van¬ 
ished,  and  which  had  not  bestirred  itself  to  save  the 
burning  papers  which  were  even  more  than  his 
home.  He  wrote  and  spoke  several  languages. 
He  loved  literature  and  ease.  His  was  the  true 
Stanley  blood.  He  was  a  loving  son,  but  fascinat¬ 
ing'  as  he  was,  never  cared  to  perpetuate  his  race. 
He  took  care  to  let  the  ladies  know  that  he  was 
"not  rich  enough  to  marry,”  and  that  he  never 
meant  to  ask  anybody  till  he  "  got  back  the  family 
plate.” 

When  the  war  broke  out,  he  was  utterly  alone  in 
the  world.  Prompt  to  sustain  all  Union  measures 


28 


SEPARA  TION. 


in  the  border  city  where  he  lived,  he  kept  a  keen 
watch  on  North  and  South.  His  father  had  died 
in  his  arms,  and  his  foster-sister  was  his  sole  kin¬ 
dred  tie.  When  he  heard  that  Sherman’s  army 
had  twice  ravaged  the  beautiful  town  where  she 
lived,  he  roused  himself  to  inquire. 

The  graveyard  showed  the  graves  of  husband 
and  children.  The  trampled  soil  of  Alabama  bore 
the  wreck  of  the  once  dainty  seminary  buildings, 
and  Rumor  added,  "  She  too  is  dead,  away  in 
Louisiana.” 

It  did  not  seem  strange  to  him.  Why  should  she 
not  die  when  her  usefulness  perished,  when  Hope 
and  Love  took  to  flight? 

So  they  rested  in  their  misapprehensions,  —  she, 
returned  to  that  Northern  hearth,  cold  for  so  many 
years ;  and  he,  in  the  daily  practice  of  the  law  in 
his  Southern  home. 


PART  II.  — REUNION. 


1  O  let  me,  true  in  love,  but  truly  write !  ” 

215/  Sonnet.  Shcikspcre. 

‘Then  of  thy  beauty  do  I  question  make, 

That  thou  among  the  wastes  of  time  must  go.” 

12 th  Sonnet. 

‘Then  can  I  grieve,  at  grievances  foregone,  . 

And  weep  afresh  Love’s  long-since  cancelled  woe.” 

30 th  Sonnet. 

‘  So  all  my  best  is  dressing  old  words  new.” 

76 th  Sonnet. 

‘  No  praise  to  thee  but  what  in  thee  doth  lie  !  ” 

•  7y th  Sonnet. 


II. 


T  FOUND  "Charlotte  Temple”  and  "Eliza  Whar¬ 
ton  ”  on  my  father’s  book-shelves  when  I  was  a 
very  little  girl.  They  were  in  a  dusty  corner  by  the 
side  of  Mackenzie’s  "Man  of  Feeling”  and  "  Dor- 
casina  Shelton,”  the  only  representatives  of  what 
my  father  was  pleased  to  call  "  works  of  fiction” 

Charlotte’s  story  seemed  pitiful  enough,  yet 
uninteresting,  because  her  own  character  offered 
neither  points  nor  variety,  but  "  Eliza  Wharton  ” 
interested  and  perplexed  me.  Of  course,  I  was 
too  young  to  take  in  the  whole  meaning  of  her 
stdry :  still  I  detected  its  inconsistencies ;  I  won¬ 
dered  over  its  stilted  sentiment,  the  severe  rebukes 
she  received,  and  the  almost  idolatrous  love  she 
inspired  ;  and,  the  older  I  grew,  the  more  perplexed 
I  became. 

It  is  no  small  tribute  to  the  literary  skill  with 
which  its  heterogeneous  material  is  welded  together 
that  I  read  this  book  several  times,  could  not  easily 
dismiss  the  troubled  interest  it  excited,  and  finally 
went  to  the  nursery  with  my  questions. 


32 


REUNION. 


"  I  cannot  tell  you  any  thing  about  her,”  said  my 
mother.  "When  I  went  to  stay  with  the  Hackers 
in  Salem,  we  used  to  walk  out  to  her  grave.  Even 
in  winter,  there  was  always  a  foot-track  to  the  very 
spot,  and  all  the  young  people  round  about  went  to 
it  to  plight  their  troth.  You  must  go  to  your  grand¬ 
mother.  She  was  born  in  Danvers.” 

Now  my  grandmother  was  only  my  grand¬ 
mother’s  cousin. 

That  is  to  say,  my  grandfather  was  twice  married. 
His  first  wife,  a  beautiful  and  dainty  creature  from 
the  old  Essex  family  of  Symonds,  had  died  soon 
after  my  mother’s  birth.  The  far-off  cousin  who 
came  to  nurse  her  in  her  last  illness,  and  to  take 
care  of  the  two  babies  she  left,  had  been  her  room¬ 
mate  at  Madame  Rowson’s,  and  remained  her  most 
intimate  friend.  She  was  now  my  grandfather’s  sec¬ 
ond  wife.  She  was  born  within  a  hundred  yards  of 
the  spot  where  Eliza  Wharton  was  laid.  She  was 
twenty  years  old  when  the  deal  coffin,  borne  by 
four  kind-hearted  strangers,  was  slowly  carried  past 
her  mother’s  door ;  and  this  was  her  answer,  deliv¬ 
ered  in  Mrs.  Rowson’s  stateliest  way,  and  with  due 
attention  to  the  rhetoric  of  the  occasion,  — 

"  There  is  only  one  lesson  for  you  to  learn  from 
'The  Coquette.’  You  are  to  mind  your  mother.  If 
Eliza  Wharton  had  done  as  her  mother  bade  her, 
she  would  have  died  quietly  in  Hartford,  and  nobody 
would  have  called  her  hard  names.” 


REUNION. 


33 


"But,  grandmamma,  was  she  a  bad  woman  ?  If 
she  was,  what  did  you  go  to  her  grave  for,  and 
why  do  the  young  lovers  like  to  talk  of  her  ?  ” 

"I  don’t  think  she  was,”  my  grandmother  re¬ 
luctantly  admitted.  "She  said  she  was  a  married 
woman  with  her  dying  breath,  and  her  ring  was 
buried  with  her.  Her  husband  must  have  been  a 
cruel  man.  She  was  always  expecting  him,  but  he 
never  came.  If  he  had  loved  her  as  he  ought,  she 
would  not  have  died  alone.  But,  whatever  he  was, 
she  was  true  to  him  :  she  never  gave  the  least  hint 
of  his  name ;  she  burned  all  her  papers,  and  kept 
his  secrets,  and  so  perhaps  some  other  woman  loved 
him  after  she  was  dead.  Her  faithfulness  was  what 
the  young  lovers  liked.  Why,  child,  your  own 
grandmother  came  home  in  tears  from  her  grave 
the  night  she  was  promised  to  your  grandfather  !  ” 

"  Then  the  book  can’t  tell  the  truth  !  ” 

"  Can’t  it  ?  ”  It  was  an  old  story  to  my  grand¬ 
mother,  and  she  would  not  pursue  it.  But  I 
thought  of  it  all  through  my  maiden  life,  never 
once  accepting  the  conclusions  of  the  novel,  and 
always  wishing  that  I  could  go  to  Danvers  and 
stand  upon  her  grave. 

Soon  after  my  marriage,  I  went  to  Portsmouth  to 
live,  and  it  happened  that  one  of  the  dearest  friends 
I  found  there  was  Mrs.  Alexander  Ladd,  a  lady 
nearly  as  old  as  my  grandmother,  yet  as  sweet 
and  charming  as  a  young  girl  of  eighteen.  We 


34 


REUNION. 


chanced  one  day  to  speak  of  Buckminster,  and 
she  gave  me  one  or  two  of  his  manuscript  sermons. 

"I  think  Eliza  Wharton  loved  him,”  I  said.  "Why 
couldn’t  she  make  up  her  mind  to  marry  him?  Do 
you  think  she  was  a  coquette?” 

"Buckminster  did  not,”  said  Mrs.  Ladd,  "and 
he  ought  to  know.  He  would  never  allow  any  one 
to  blame  her  in  his  presence.  There  were  reasons 
enough  why  no  woman  should  marry  him.  He 
was  subject  to  terrible  attacks  of  hypochondria  even 
in  college,  and  after  Eliza’s  death  they  became  still 
more  prostrating.  Mrs.  Lee  said  she  would  not 
dare  unveil  her  father’s  journal  to  a  generation  that 
felt  no  sympathy  with  his  religious  convictions.” 

"But  I  have  heard  that  he  liked  the  novel,”  I 
continued:  "the  family  of  the  author  insist  that  he 
thought  the  letters  written  to  Boyer  so  like  those 
written  to  himself  as  to  make  it  probable  they  were 
copies.” 

"  It  is  possible  that  he  may  sometime  have  spoken 
on  some  particular  point  to  the  author’s  husband,” 
answered  my  friend,  "for  Mr.  Foster  was  his  rela¬ 
tive  in  just  the  same  degree  as  Eliza  herself ;  but  I 
can  hardly  conceive  it.  The  book  does  him  great 
injustice  by  representing  him  as  discussing  his  love 
and  her  affairs  with  his  friend.  That  is  something 
he  never  would  have  done.  As  to  the  rest,  I  can 
tell  you  what  happened  in  this  very  room.  Just 
after  the  book  was  published,  Mr.  Buckminster 


REUNION. 


35 


came  to  call  on  my  mother.  She  was  not  quite 
ready  to  receive  him,  and  probably  forgot  that  a 
fresh  copy  of  the  book,  just  received  from  Boston, 
lay  upon  the  table. 

"  When  she  came  down,  she  found  the  doctor 
thrusting  something  under  the  coals  upon  the 
hearth.  As  he  turned  round  to  greet  her  with 
flaming  eyes,  she  saw  its  leather  covers  curling  in 
the  blaze.  'Madam,’ said  he,  pointing  to  the  spot, 
'there  lies  your  book.  It  ought  never  to  have 
been  written,  and  it  shall  never  be  read,  —  at  least, 
not  in  my  parish.  Bid  the  ladies  take  notice, 
wherever  I  find  a  copy  I  shall  treat  it  in  the  same 
way,’  and  so  saying  he  stalked  out  of  the  room, 
leaving  my  poor  mother  speechless.” 

So,  little  by  little,  my  first  feeling  gathered 
strength.  The  years  went  by,  and  my  son,  old 
enough  now  to  have  a  romance  of  his  own,  was 
leaving  me  the  second  time  for  Alaska. 

We  parted  as  those  part  who  know  that  all  the 
issues  of  life  lie  between  that  moment  and  their 
next  meeting.  We  asked  nothing  of  each  other, 
but  from  San  Francisco  he  wrote  back,  — 

"While  I  am  gone,  write  briefly  some  record  of 
your  own  life,  and  a  few  words  about  my  ancestors. 
I  don’t  believe  I  know  the  name  of  my  great-grand¬ 
father,  and  I  think  that  is  disgraceful.” 

I  read  the  letter  to  my  mother. 

"You  ought  to  do  it,”  she  said:  "you  promised 


36 


REUNION. 


me  long  ago  that  you  would  go  to  Middleton  and 
look  up  the  history  of  my  mother’s  family.  Do  it 
now.” 

My  mother’s  mother  had  been  the  last  of  her 
line.  My  mother  had  never  seen  any  one  of  her 
blood.  In  the  earlier  part  of  her  life  she  had 
thought  little  about  it ;  but,  as  she  grew  older  and 
came  nearer  to  the  veil  which  covered  the  past, 
she  became  restless  and  impatient  of  her  own  igno¬ 
rance. 

So  it  happened  that  for  her  sake  I  went  to  Mid¬ 
dleton,  and  stood  upon  the  lovely  beech-covered 
knolls,  and  pursued  the  crystal  brooks  which  had 
replaced  to  my  ancestors  the  fertile  fields  and  purl¬ 
ing  streams  of  Kent.  But  I  could  not  work  so  fast 
as  she  faded,  and  her  sweet  eyes  were  closed  in 
death  when  I  first  laid  my  hand  upon  the  old 
register. 

I  stood  there  dreaming,  my  cheeks  wet  and  a 
soft  mist  over  all  the  distance,  when  the  harsh 
voice  of  the  old  clerk  jarred  upon  my  ear. 

"They  burnt  up  the  records,  —  some  of  the  folks 
at  the  Hall.  Perhaps  you’ll  find  ’em  at  Danvers. 
A  great-aunt  of  your  mother’s  was  there  when  Eliza 
Wharton  died.  The  S}’mondses  owned  the  Bell 
Tavern  once.” 

Even  here  this  shadow  of  a  shade  pursued  me  ! 

The  course  of  weeks  brought  me  to  Danvers,  and 
there  a  lady  well  known  to  every  kind  and  gener- 


REUNION. 


37 


ous  work  drove  me  about  in  her  own  carriage, 
and  helped  me  in  my  earnest  quest. 

"That  is  where  the  Bell  Tavern  stood,”  she  said, 
as  we  drove,  "  my  father  owned  that  at  one  time.” 

"  Not  while  Eliza  Wharton  was  in  it  ?  ”  I  cried 
breathlessly. 

"No,”  she  said,  "it  was  afterwards.  He  was 
building  a  house  for  himself,  and  bought  the 
tavern  to  live  in  while  it  was  building.  It  was  a 
great  deal  larger  than  he  needed,  and  so  it  some¬ 
times  happened  that  he  kept  a  traveller  overnight.” 

"Did  you  ever  hear  your  mother  talk  of  Eliza?  ” 

"  Oh,  yes !  very  often,  and  I  remember  the 
Southwicks  very  well.  Mrs.  Southwick  was  with 
her  to  the  end,  and  loved  her  so  much  !  ” 

"  Did  she  ever  know  who  her  husband  was  ?  ”  I 
asked,  "or  guess  why  he  did  not  come  to  her  in  her 
last  agony  ?  ” 

"  He  did  come,”  answered  my  friend,  "  but  why  he 
did  not  find  her  is  still  a  mystery.  Eliza  had  written 
to  him  and  expected  him  ;  but  it  was  after  she  was 
very  feeble,  and  she  took  no  one  into  her  confi¬ 
dence.  One  afternoon,  when  the  end  was  near,  one 
of  the  Symonds  boys  was  sitting  at  the  door  and 
saw  some  chalk  letters  on  the  flag.  Thinking 
that  they  had  been  written  in  play,  he  stooped 
down  and  rubbed  them  out.  Still  later  in  the  dusk, 
a  man  in  a  military  dress,  and  of  a  distinguished 
appearance,  came  on  horseback  down  the  road. 


38 


REUNION. 


As  he  drew  near  the  tavern,  he  looked  carefully 
about,  rode  up  close  to  the  door-steps,  and  at  the 
tavern  itself  dismounted  and  seemed  to  search  for 
something. 

"  He  made  no  inquiries  :  no  one  happened  to  be 
about  the  tavern  door ;  and,  although  he  was  ob¬ 
served  by  some  children  and  a  few  of  the  neighbors, 
no  one  thought  to  connect  him  with  the  dying 
woman  until  the  following  day,  when  the  scattered 
chalk  upon  the  door-stone  still  showed  faint  traces 
of  the  letters  E.  W.,  and  the  unconscious  author  of 
Eliza’s  disappointment  owned  that  he  had  tried  to 
wipe  them  out. 

"No  one  told  her  what  had  happened,  and  it  is 
certain  that  from  that  moment  her  spirits  sank.” 

I  could  not  speak  for  a  few  moments.  I  was 
thinking  sadly  of  the  disproportioned  measure 
meted  out  to  the  sinners  of  the  world. 

Slight  indeed  compared  to  many,  successfully 
concealed  and  never  punished  even  by  the  re¬ 
proaches  of  society,  was  the  error  of  this  rare  and 
beautiful  woman.  Was  it  the  love  of  God  that  so 
watched  over  her,  and  would  not  bear  with  the 
least  backsliding  from  the  good  old  way  of  her 
fathers  ? 

While  I  was  thinking,  my  friend  spoke, — 

"  I  wish  you  could  tell  me  who  it  was  that  used  to 
come  every  year,  for  many  years  after  her  death, 
to  look  at  that  lonely  grave.  Soon  after  the  stone 


REUNION. 


39 


was  put  up,  a  lady  and  gentleman  came  in  a  chaise 
to  look  at  it.  My  father  was  in  the  tavern  at  the 
time,  and  entertained  them.  No  one  thought  of 
asking  who  they  were.  Every  year  at  the  same 
time,  they  appeared,  growing  older  and  sadder  till 
both  were  white-haired  and  bent.  They  sought  us 
out  wherever  we  were.  Leaving  the  horse  to  be 
cared  for,  they  walked  away  to  Eliza’s  grave,  stayed 
there  a  while,  dined  with  us,  and  then  went  away. 
They  never  gave  us  any  names,  and  we  never  asked 
for  any.  Who  were  they?  ” 

I  could  not  tell  her  then,  but  I  know  now.  How 
their  hearts  must  have  ached  as  they  sat  there, 
wondering  who  had  robbed  them  of  their  treasure, 
trying  in  vain  to  penetrate  the  secret  those  sods  had 
covered  ! 

In  the  summer  of  1873,  the  American  Associa¬ 
tion  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  met  at  Port¬ 
land  in  Maine. 

Now  there  lives  in  Portland  a  lady  who  years 
ago  fell  heir  to  many  valuable  papers,  and  among 
them  to  various  letters  of  distinguished  persons  in 
Europe  and  this  country  at  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  letters  which  once  belonged  to  the  diplo¬ 
matic  correspondence  of  one  of  our  ministers  to 
France.  On  various  pretences  of  writing  histories  or 
biographies,  many  of  these  papers  had  been  wiled 
away  from  their  possessor ;  and  one  who  loved  her 
and  her  many  daughters  had  more  than  once  begged 


4° 


REUNION. 


me  to  look  at  them  and  see  if  among  the  "nothing 
left  ”  something  could  not  be  found  of  real  value. 
When  it  was  certain  that  I  should  go  down  to  the 
meeting  of  the  Association,  my  friend  again  ap¬ 
peared.  "Go  and  look  at  those  papers,”  she  said: 
"  it  will  entertain  you  at  least,  and  it  may  be  worth 
something  to  their  owner.” 

So  I  promised  with  the  usual  reservations.  It 
was  a  busy  week,  as  everybody  knows  who  was 
there.  Excursions  to  the  White  Mountains,  to  the 
Islands,  to  Jackson  and  Professor  Baird,  kept  us  all 
busy ;  so  the  very  last  night  came,  and  I  had  not 
done  as  I  promised. 

On  that  last  night,  however,  I  strolled  in  the  warm 
sunset  to  the  very  outskirts  of  the  town,  where  the 
papers  were  to  be  found. 

The  contents  of  the  desk  were  laid  before  me, 
almost  in  the  very  first  moment  of  a  gracious  South¬ 
ern  welcome  ;  and  I  saw  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  do  justice  to  the  files,  even  though  I  sat  up  all 
night.  I  asked  permission  to  take  them  back  to 
Boston,  and,  giving  a  formal  receipt  for  them,  took 
them  away. 

Weeks  passed  before  I  had  time  to  look  at  them  ; 
but  although,  in  a  very  proper  sense  of  the  words, 
there  was  "  nothing  left  ”  of  what  had  once  been  a 
most  valuable  collection,  there  was  one  pile  of 
papers  which  riveted  my  attention,  and  would 
have  well  repaid  me  for  a  far  greater  fatigue,  — 


REUNION. 


41 


have  justified,  to  my  eyes,  a  far  greater  expenditure 
of  time.  One  of  these  two  was  labelled  "Bessie 
Wharton’s  Letters,”  in  the  handwriting  of  Joel  Bar- 
low.  I  wonder  if  there  be  among  all  my  readers 
one  young  girl,  interested  to  lift  a  cloud  from  some 
dead  name,  who  can  understand  the  thrill  with 
which  I  took  those  papers  into  my  hands? 

A  little  more  hesitation,  and  I  should  never  have 
seen  them  !  Written  six  years  before  her  death,  they 
were  not  likely  to  hold  the  clue  I  sought ;  yet  for 
the  first  time  I  saw  something  which  Eliza  Whar¬ 
ton’s  own  pen  had  written,  for  the  first  time  I  had 
opportunity  to  see  how  her  own  mind  worked. 

When  the  old  parsonage  burned  down,  in  1831, 
there  must  have  been  many  papers  in  it,  written  by 
her  pen,  which  we  should  have  been  glad  to  see  ; 
but  her  brother  was  alive  then,  and  his  heart  still 
sore.  The  box  which  held  them  mocked  him 
with  long  past  hopes,  —  seemed  to  him  only  a  funeral 
urn.  These  letters  ranged  from  1778  to  1782. 
Many  of  them  were  sealed  with  the  Stanley  crest. 
They  were  written  under  circumstances  which 
might  have  given  room  for  some  unseemly  jesting, 
when  the  manners  of  the  period  are  considered  ;  but 
I  rose  from  my  reading  surer  than  ever  of  the 
purity  and  strength  of  Eliza  Wharton’s  nature, —  surer 
than  ever  that  she  followed  no  earth-born  phantom, 
when  she  turned  away  from  the  beaten  path.  But 
in  one  respect  I  was  utterly  surprised.  No  reader 

5 


42 


REUNION. 


of  these  pages  can  be  more  amazed  at  any  thing 
they  contain  than  I  was  at  the  practical  character 
of  these  letters.  In  them,  she  names  many  of  her 
young  friends,  still  students  at  Yale,  men  upon 
whose  character  no  shadow  of  reproach  ever  fell. 
Some  of  them  are  poor :  for  them  she  plans  and 
works,  in  the  wisest  way. 

Buckminster  graduated  in  1 7 79*  1°  be 

married  his  fair  bride  in  Kittery.  According  to  the 
novel,  this  year  should  have  found  Eliza  Wharton 
depressed  and  lifeless.  It  really  finds  her  busy  in 
household  concerns,  cheerfully  planning  household 
economies  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Barlow,  in  Hartford, 
—  calmly  inquiring  into  the  prices  of  crockery  and 
provisions  ! 

In  the  third  part  of  this  history,  I  shall  gather 
together  such  papers  as  remain  to  indicate  the  char¬ 
acter  of  this  beautiful  woman.  I  will  not  speak  for 
them  :  they  shall  speak  for  themselves. 

When  I  had  done  reading,  I  laid  my  head  down 
upon  my  hands,  and  wondered  seriously  whether  I 
should  ever  discover  the  secret  of  this  unuttered  life. 

For  a  whole  year  I  steadily  bore  the  purpose  in 
mind.  I  sought  out  the  family  of  the  author  of 
"The  Coquette.”  I  corresponded  with  all  who  re¬ 
mained  of  the  two  families  implicated  by  the  story ; 
but  no  one  knew  any  better  than  I  who  was  the 
father  of  Eliza’s  child,  no  one  knew  any  better 
than  I  whether  any  of  her  blood  survived.  An  edi- 


REUNION. 


43 


tion  of  "  The  Coquette,”  published  in  1855,  claimed 
that  the  family  was  extinct.  Yet  I  determined  to 
challenge  everybody  who  bore  that  fateful  name ; 
and  as  one  slender  silvery  clue  had  floated  upward 
from  that  yellow  parcel  of  letters,  so  I  felt  a  dim 
hope  might  another  from  the  latest  grave  among 
her  kin,  if  ever  I  could  hope  to  find  it. 

The  year  passed.  I  saw  many  persons  of  the 
name  in  its  passage ;  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  it 
never  occurred  to  me  to  question  one  of  them. 

In  August,  1874,  American  Association  was 
to  hold  its  meeting  in  Hartford.  Just  before  I  left 
home  to  attend  it,  it  happened  that  I  read  the 
whole  of  Eliza’s  letters  aloud  to  a  friend  ;  but  so 
little  did  I  know  of  that  city  that  I  wholly  forgot 
that  I  was  going  to  the  very  spot  still  pregnant  with 
the  memories  of  her  tragic  end. 

If  I  had  remembered,  I  should  have  put  her  let¬ 
ters  into  my  pocket.  As  it  was,  I  left  them  at 
home. 

On  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  August  nth,  I 
reached  Hartford.  Owing  to  some  misapprehen¬ 
sion,  the  room  which  had  been  engaged  for  me  at 
Mrs.  House’s  proved  entirely  unsuitable,  and,  with 
4  a  feeling  of  lively  gratitude  to  that  lady  for  the 
grace  with  which  she  made  a  change  possible,  a 
gratitude  which  will  always  keep  the  memory  of 
Hartford  green,  I  went  out  into  the  night  to  find  a 
place  for  myself. 


44 


REUNION. 


I  found  it  in  a  perfectly  quiet  little  house,  at  what 
I  believe  was  the  north  end  of  the  town ;  a  house 
which  gave  me  a  large,  light,  airy  room,  but  where 
I  neither  expected  nor  wished  to  find  society,  and 
where  I  certainly  never  should  have  found  myself 
under  any  other  circumstances.  At  breakfast  the 
next  morning,  my  attention  was  attracted  to  a  lady 
who  sat  opposite  to  me.  She  bore  the  unmistak¬ 
able  marks  of  a  Southern  woman  accustomed  to 
the  best  society  ;  but  her  dress  showed  traces  not 
only  of  the  war,  but  of  that  quaintness  which  is 
inseparable  from  an  isolated  life. 

While  I  was  wondering  what  she  thought  of  the 
omelette  on  her  plate,  and  whether  she  was  not 
secretly  longing  for  a  slice  of  "pone,”  she  spoke, 
told  me  who  she  was,  and  asked  some  questions 
about  the  Association  whose  members  were  filling 
all  the  hotels  in  town. 

So  it  happened  that,  when  I  came  home  at  night, 

I  brought  a  printed  programme  including  a  list  of 
members  already  arrived,  and  offered  it  to  the 
bright  little  lady.  The  next  time  I  entered  the 
dining-room  I  found  Mrs.  Burton  anxiously  waiting 
for  me,  programme  in  hand. 

"  I  have  been  watching  for  you,  so  long,”  she* 
said.  "  I  have  been  quite  impatient then,  pointing 
to  her  paper,  "Can  you  tell  me  who  this  lady  is, 
this  Miss  Roberts  from  the  West?  I  told  you  I 
had  come  to  Hartford  to  see  a  Connecticut  lady, 


REUNION. 


45 


who  was  ruined  by  the  war,  that  I  came  to  this 
house  to  be  near  her?  Well,  she  had  a  lady  in  her 
Southern  school  as  a  teacher  for  nine  years,  of  this 
name.  That  Miss  Roberts  came  North  in  1861. 
We  loved  her  very  much.  I  have  only  seen  her 
once  in  all  these  years ;  and  then  it  was  in  New 
Orleans,  and  by  a  miracle.  How  can  I  get  at  her? 
What  does  she  look  like?” 

My  answers  to  these  impetuous  questions  excited 
her  still  more,  and  she  begged  me  to  bring  her 
face  to  face  with  Miss  Roberts. 

It  was  a  service  somewhat  unwelcome,  and  one 
that  I  might  easily  have  evaded.  It  would  certainly 
bring  me  into  contact  with  several  persons  whom 
I  had  no  desire  to  seek ;  so  I  took  the  night  to 
reflect  upon  it.  If  I  introduced  Mrs.  Burton,  I 
should  feel  obliged  to  provide  excursion  tickets 
for  her,  and  the  Mrs.  Munson  she  had  come  North 
to  visit.  It  was  very  possible  that  this  might  hamper 
me  in  many  ways,  interrupt  my  work,  and  separate 
me  from  the  society  I' most  desired  to  keep. 

However,  the  next  morning  I  took  Mrs.  Burton 
to  the  Hall ;  and  very  soon  certain  melodramatic 
outcries  on  the  ed^e  of  the  audience  £ave  me  fair 
warning  that  a  recognition  had  taken  place. 

During  the  first  week  of  our  meeting,  to  get  tick¬ 
ets  was  an  easy  matter  enough.  The  week  closed 
with  an  excursion  down  the  river  to  the  sea ;  for 
which,  owing  to  the  small  size  of  the  boat,  few  invi- 


46 


REUNION. 


tations  were  allowed.  I  made  no  attempt  to  get  any 
for  the  Southern  part}',  but  promised  I  would  secure 
some  to  the  Portland  quarries,  and  to  Ore  Moun¬ 
tain,  on  the  following  Wednesday  and  Thursday. 

Indeed,  we  were  wedged  into  our  boat  with  a 
closeness  which  far  outdid  that  of  the  proverbial  sar¬ 
dines  ;  and  so  cramped  was  my  position,  that,  though 
I  might  use  my  eyes,  I  could  hardly  use  my  tongue, 
and  a  brief  respite  only  came  when,  dropping  some 
of  our  party  near  the  mouth  of  the  river,  Pro¬ 
fessor  Haldimand  sat  down  beside  me,  and  showed 
me  a  lovely  enamelled  bead  dug  out  of  an  Indian 
grave  in  Pennsylvania,  which  had  started  on  its 
travels  from  "Tyre  by  the  Sea,”  and,  after  coasting 
Cornwall,  had  served  the  belles  of  Iceland  and 
Eskimo-land  in  turn,  and,  having  kept  faithful  com¬ 
pany  with  wampum,  was  now  floating  down  the 
tide  with  us,  in  the  society  of  Dr.  Steiner’s  emer¬ 
ald,  and  a  nameless  Hartford  lady’s  solitaires. 

It  was  pleasant  to  have  this  atom  of  enamel  as  a 
make-weight  in  the  balance  kept  with  a  certain  dis¬ 
tracting  paper  on  "  The  Conservation  of  Molecules  ” 
literally  "thrown  in”  to  our  discussion  the  night 
before.  The  lovely  lights  and  shadows  of  an  ex¬ 
quisite  sunset,  stealing  through  the  columns  of  the 
wooded  heights,  and  mirrored  under  the  bank, 
seemed  in  soft  keeping  with  the  weird  story  of  the 
bead,  and  the  tender  radiance  of  the  moon  which 
had  shone  upon  Eden  and  its  "molecules”  as  well 


REUNION. 


47 


as  now  upon  us.  But  none  of  these  distractions 
could  draw  my  eyes  from  the  tall  figure  of  a  white- 
haired  man,  who  stood  against  the  door  of  the 
saloon,  leaning  on  his  staff'  and  gazing  out  into  the 
shadows.  When  I  found  myself  persistently  looking 
at  him,  I  inquired,  at  those  odd  moments  when 
speech  was  possible,  who  he  might  be,  but  no  one 
knew  him  ;  and  then  I  decided  that  he  must  be 
lame,  and  that  my  sympathy  was  stirred  because 
he  had  been  standing,  like  many  younger  people, 
nearly  all  the  day.  There  he  stood,  however,  his 
genial,  glowing  face  giving  no  great  evidence  of 
fatigue,  until  the  boat  turned  to  ascend  the  river, 
and  then  I  missed  him. 

Monday  morning  found  me  at  the  State  House, 
wearily  bobbing  up  and  down  between  the  papers  that 
I  wanted  to  hear  and  the  crowded  committee  room 
below,  where  were  dealt  out  the  excursion  tickets 
that  I  wanted,  yet  did  not  want,  to  secure.  My 
New  York  friend  laughed  at  me,  as  she  sat  lazily 
in  the  shadows  of  "  evolution  ;  ”  but  cried  out,  "  Since 
you  are  in  for  it,  get  mine  also  !  ”  which  I  meekly 
accomplished. 

Now  it  happened  that  as  days  went  by,  I  had 
seen  something  of  the  lady  whom  Mrs.  Burton  had 
come  North  to  visit. 

She  interested  me  profoundly.  In  her  calm  and 
lovely  face,  I  saw  the  traces  of  a  life  of  action  and 
a  life  of  sorrow. 


48 


REUNION. 


I  heard  that,  although  her  years  were  as  three¬ 
score  years  and  ten,  she  still  desired  to  earn  her 
own  bread,  and  was  anxious  to  find  some  vacant  post 
to  fill.  So,  oddly  enough,  as  it  afterwards  seemed, 
on  the  very  day  we  were  to  go  to  the  quarries,  I 
went  to  Mrs.  Aurora  Phelps,  —  a  lady  more  than 
eighty  years  of  age,  and  who  has  still  a  wide  con¬ 
nection  among  the  teachers  of  young  girls,  —  to  see 
if  any  thing  could  be  found  for  her. 

Mrs.  Phelps  gave  me  some  little  encouragement, 
and,  with  my  heart  a  little  lighter  on  Mrs.  Munson’s 
account,  I  went  with  my  own  party  to  the  Middle- 
town  train. 

The  excursion  tickets  for  this  day  were  double. 
They  took  us  first  to  the  lovely  little  chapel  con¬ 
nected  with  the  Church  school,  and  called  by 
Bishop  Berkeley’s  name.  Thence  to  the  Wesleyan 
University,  where  we  inspected  museum,  observa¬ 
tory,  and  library,  and  afterwards  ate  at  the  expense 
of  the  citizens  a  hot  dinner  at  the  hotel.  As  we 
came  out  of  the  library,  I  saw  again  the  tall  figure 
of  my  "unknown,”  limping  a  little  as  he  seemed  to 
walk  and  talk  and  think  alone.  I  did  not  see  my 
Southern  friends. 

After  dinner,  at  least  a  hundred  new  people 
joined  our  part}',  for  an  excursion  to  the  quarries. 

My  companion  and  myself  loitered  a  little  on  the 
way  to  the  ferry, — lost  the  first  boat,  and  so  found  our¬ 
selves  alone  on  the  wharf,  to  meditate  on  "  structure  ” 


REUNION. 


49 


at  our  leisure.  Once  over  the  river,  we  sat  down 
on  the  trunk  of  an  ancient  tree,  long  since  con¬ 
verted  into  a  fine  slab  of  "brown  front,”  and  I  gave 
up  a  late  search  for  fossils  in  the  far  dearer  chance 
of  penetrating  a  live  heart,  and  listening  to  a  love 
story  whose  tides  swept  round  the  globe.  Thank 
God  for  the  living  power  which  now  and  then 
bursts  through  conventional  fetters,  melts  strange 
hearts  into  one,  and  gives  to  those  grown  cold  in 
disappointment  and  isolation  a  passing  glimpse  at 
least  of  the  great  central  fires  of  Life  and  Motion  ! 

Just  as  my  eyes  overflowed  and  my  heart  softened, 
a  little  ragged  child,  with  fagots  in  her  arms,  came 
along  the  sandy  track  of  the  brown  quarry,  and, 
lifting  her  great  shy  eyes  to  the  elegant  dress  of  my 
companion,  stopped  short  and  said  softly,  "  How 
pretty  !  ” 

"Yes,  indeed,”  I  responded,  and  was  going  to 
bring  the  child,  that  she  might  touch  the  soft  velvet, 
and  see  the  shimmer  of  the  lustrous  silvery  silk, 
when  I  caught  sight  of  Mrs.  Burton,  Mrs.  Munson, 
and  Miss  Roberts  hurrying  in  troubled  agitation 
towards  the  town.  It  was  quite  clear  that  the 
strength  of  threescore  and  ten  had  been  overtaxed 
by  the  effort  to  keep  up  with  younger  explorers  ; 
and  so  I  hurried  towards  the  hotel  also,  advising 
Mrs.  Munson  to  rest  until  the  very  moment  of 
return. 

I  meant  to  keep  her  in  sight,  for  I  was  less  a 


REUNION. 


50 

stranger  than  any  of  her  party ;  but  other  matters 
occupied  me,  and  I  saw  her  only  when  she  started, 
a  long  hour  too  soon  for  the  depot,  in  the  hope  that 
a  slow  walk  would  prevent  utter  exhaustion. 

As  for  our  part}',  —  starting  later,  we  were  invited 
to  rest  in  Professor  Gardiner’s  fine  old  house,  where 
we  were  all  needlessly  startled  by  the  whistle  of  an 
approaching  freight  train,  and  finally  stood  in  the 
darkness  on  the  platform  a  full  hour. 

In  the  midst  of  this,  when  no  one  could  see  an¬ 
other’s  face,  I  heard  the  weary  voice  of  Mrs. 
Munson,  and  succeeded  in  piloting  her  to  the  little 
ticket-office,  —  so  crowded  that  nothing  less  than 
her  white  face  and  fainting  body  could  have  secured 
a  seat.  Her  party  had  lost  its  way,  had  doubled  or 
trebled  its  distance,  and  reached  the  point  of  depart¬ 
ure  long  after  the  rest  of  us. 

I  left  her  there  with  her  friends  and  a  glass  of 
water,  and  returned  to  the  outer  air. 

Of  the  horrors  of  that  hour  of  waiting,  when  three 
hundred  people  stood  crowded  together  on  the  nar¬ 
row  plank,  I  need  say  nothing  to  any  one  who  has 
ever  arrived  at  Middletown  by  night.  When  the 
train  came  rushing  up,  the  reason  of  the  delay  was 
apparent. 

It  was  freighted  with  a  large  excursion  party  of 
a  ruder  kind,  from  a  more  remote  point,  and  into 
the  cracks  of  its  huddled  hundreds  the  already 
"molten  metal”  of  our  party  was  to  be  poured! 


REUNION. 


51 


Naturally  enough,  those  of  us  who  had  our  wits 
about  us  crow'ded  towards  the  car. 

Suddenly,  a  strong  voice  made  itself  heard. 
"Gentlemen,  stand  back!  Don’t  you  see  there  are 
no  seats  for  you?  Let  the  ladies  come  first;”  and 
the  diminished  pressure  made  it  certain  that  a  strong 
arm  seconded  the  strong  voice,  that  the  crowd  sifted 
under  it,  —  the  women  passing  on,  the  men  kept 
back.  While  I  waited  below,  the  voice  of  Mrs. 
Burton  rang  back  from  the  platform  like  a  bell. 

"Oh,  sir!  protect  my  friend!  She  is  old  and 
very, tired.  They  will  hurt  her,  if  they  press  on 
her;”  and  then  I  felt  rather  than  saw  in  the  dim 
air,  how  the  man  who  had  been  speaking  put  his 
cane  between  his  legs,  both  hands  behind  the  shoul¬ 
ders  of  poor  Mrs.  Munson,  and  gave  her  a  steady 
lift  upwards.  This  done,  we  both  followed  her. 
Mrs.  Munson  passed  into  the  third  seat  from  the 
door,  and  began  to  rearrange  her  disordered  dress. 
I  stood  near. 

The  man,  sheltered  by  the  obscurity,  found  an 
odd  seat  near  the  door  by  a  lady  whose  expressive 
tones  soon  indicated  Miss  Roberts.  With  her  he 
kept  up  some  geological  discussion,  which  so  inter¬ 
ested  Mrs.  Munson,  that,  leaning  backward,  she 
said  to  a  gentleman  who  sat  opposite, — 

"Will  you  change  seats  wfith  me,  sir?  I  should 
like  to  hear  what  my  friend  is  saying.” 

The  change  was  made  in  a  moment.  There  was 


52 


REUNION. 


a  rustle,  a  cough,  and  then  I  heard  Miss  Roberts 
say,  — 

"  But  I  must  introduce  you  to  m}r  friend ;  ”  and 
then  it  appeared,  that,  in  strict  conformity  to  her 
frank  Western  habit,  Miss  Roberts  did  not  know 
the  name  of  the  gentleman  to  whom  she  was  talk- 
ing. 

She  turned,  "  Will  you  give  me  your  name,  sir, 
if  you  please  ?  ” 

I  cannot  tell  why  at  that  moment  there  was  such 
utter  silence  in  the  car.  The  coarse  .factory  folk 
we  had  fallen  among  could  have  had  no  sympathy 
with  what  was  coming ;  but  I  heard  the  answer 
clearly,  — 

"  William  Wharton  !  ” 

Mrs.  Munson  sprang  to  her  feet.  "What?  what 
did  you  say  ?  William  ?  — ”  she  gasped  out,  and, 
rising. also,  he  answered  in  the  same  excited  tones, 
—  "Yes,  William,  William  Wharton.” 

Still  the  same  breathless  silence,  but  an  unsa¬ 
vory  crowd  pressing  closer  and  closer  toward  our 
corner. 

"And  do  you  know  who  /  am  ?”  Mrs.  Munson 
cried  ;  and,  as  they  stood  opposite,  she  fell  upon  his 
bosom,  and  the  stalwart  form  of  my'  unknown” 
came  into  the  shifting  light,  his  white  beard  min¬ 
gled  with  her  black  laces,  and  his  strong  arms  held 
her  fast. 

For  a  moment  the  whole  car  was  in  confusion. 


REUNION. 


53 


Nothing  could  be  heard.  Mrs.  Munson  lay  ex¬ 
hausted  and  half  fainting.  I  heard  dimly  the 
words  "  my  sister,”  and  then  Mrs.  Burton’s  voice. 

"  Who  are  you  ?  Who  are  you  ?  ”  every  word 
accompanied  by  a  rapid  and  violent  attempt  to 
shake  the  strong  arms  loose. 

"You  are  insulting  my  friend,  sir.  Let  her  go. 
She  has  no  brother.” 

But  she  mifrht  as  well  have  assaulted  the  strong 
shaft  on  Bunker  Hill.  The  closely  folded  arms  did 
not  relax,  the  deaf  ear  did  not  hear  till  the  storm 
of  emotion  had  passed,  and  the  two  old  people  sank 
into  their  seats. 

Only  dimly  did  anybody  understand. 

"She  has  found  somebody ,”  said  a  man  in  the 
crowd,  and  raised  a  stunning  "three  times  three;” 
but  the  parties  themselves  neither  cared  nor  heard. 
Memory  had  gone  backward  to  the  days  when  the 
little  girl  sipped  her  milk  from  the  boy’s  porringer, 
toasted  apples  before  the  dripping  brands,  held 
the  shagbarks  to  the  Christmas  blaze,  or  shyly 
mended  the  well-worn  socks  which  the  tired  feet 
threw  oft'  after  a  hot  summer  tramp  to  the  old 
farm. 

Now  both  stood  alone  at  the  end  of  life.  Mrs. 
Munson  had  found  " somebody ,”  but  whom  ?  I  had 
found  my  unknown,  whence  came  he  ?  That 
night  I  answered  neither  question. 


54 


REUNION. 


"Well,”  said  Mrs.  Burton  at  breakfast  the  next 
morning,  "wasn’t  that  a  surprise  last  night  ?” 

"Avery  great  surprise,”  I  answered,  laughing ; 
"but  I  have  not  the  least  idea  what  happened ;  and, 
whatever  it  was,  it  took  the  life  out  of  me,  and  I 
had  not  strength  enough  to  ask  a  question.” 

"I  don’t  half  understand  it  myself,”  said  the  little 
lady.  "I  went  home  with  them,  but  they  were  so 
excited  they  could  not  talk.  Mrs.  Munson  has 
found  a  foster-brother,  and  he  has  believed  her 
dead  ever  since  the  last  year  of  the  war.  Some  of 
the  professors  found  it  out,  and  begged  them  to 
make  a  jubilee  of  it  and  go  to  Salisbury  to-day  ; 
but  Mr.  Wharton  seemed  to  shrink  from  it.  I  don’t 
believe  they’ll  go.” 

But  when,  half  an  hour  later,  I  went  to  the  depot, 
they  had  evidently  thought  better  of  it.  They  could 
not  escape  if  they  would.  The  story  had  found 
wings  ;  and  if  they  had  chosen  to  stay  at  home,  we 
should  have  stayed  with  them.  My  unknown  hero 
stood  waiting  for  the  cars,  his  face  flushed  and  his 
eyes  tearful.  Mrs.  Munson  still  clung  to  his  arm, 
looking  bewildered,  but  exquisitely  happy. 

It  would  have  been  touching'  to  see  two  young 
lovers  reunited  after  years  of  separation  ;  but  it  was 
far  more  moving  to  look  at  these  two  people,  sole 
survivors  of  the  happy  morning  of  life,  brought 
together,  without  warning,  after  the  common  term 
of  existence  was  ended. 


REUNION. 


55 


"I  am  glad  to  see  you,”  I  said,  putting  out  my 
hand.  "They  told  me  you  had  declined  to  be  a 
spectacle  !  ” 

"Well,  as  to  that”  said  the  old  man  humorously, 
"  I  didn’t  so  much  care ;  but,  it  was  a  -pair  of  spec¬ 
tacles  !  ”  and  he  looked  down  at  the  happy  figure 
on  his  arm. 

Happy  indeed ;  far  happier  than  he ;  for  little 
would  she  have  cared  had  there  been  three  "pairs 
of  spectacles.” 

We  got  into  the  car,  the  old  friends  keeping  close 
together,  touching  each  other’s  hair,  and  looking 
through  each  other’s  glasses,  like  a  couple  of  chil¬ 
dren. 

There  was  scarce  a  dry  eye  in  the  company  ; 
and  by  and  by  the  whole  party  came  to  them  in 
pairs,  took  their  hands,  and  congratulated  them 
upon  their  fete.  Seated  behind  them,  I  listened 
and  watched  in  pleased  curiosity  for  a  while  ;  then, 
sure  of  getting  at  the  whole  story  by  and  by,  I  went 
with  Professor  Brewer  to  the  rear  of  the  car,  that 
I  might  see  the  "twin  lakes,”  the  "summit,”  and  the 
lofty  passes. 

This  over,  I  came  back  through  the  dining 
saloon,  and  took  my  luncheon  there,  sitting  with 
Professor  Gray  by  the  open  side  of  the  car. 

I  had  also  to  provide  a  lunch  for  a  sweet  little 
woman  with  snowy  hair,  who  would  rather  starve 
than  be  swirled  over  the  platform  of  a  car  moving 
at  the  rate  of  fifty  miles  an  hour. 


REUNION. 


56 

So  it  happened  that  I  went  back  without  my 
gloves,  burdened  with  peaches  and  sandwiches, 
sitting  down  unconsciously  directly  in  front  of  Mrs. 
Munson  and  her  brother,  and  looking  back  into 
their  happy  faces.  Mr.  Wharton’s  hand  lay  over 
the  back  of  my  seat  as  he  talked  to  me.  It  seemed 
to  be  half  covered  by  a  heavy  seal-ring,  cut  in 
bloodstone.  I  could  not  help  looking  at  it.  Indeed 
"  its  beauty  was  its  own  excuse  for  ”  seeing.  It 
carried  the  heads  of  Socrates  and  Plato  ;  and  was 
one  of  those  rare  antiques  we  sometimes  see,  where 
every  retreating  line,  polished  like  a  mirror,  utters 
swift  defiance  to  all  modern  art. 

"  You  are  looking  at  my  ring?  ”  he  said,  and  held 
it  out  proudly.  The  car  clattered  on.  The  ring 
shook  in  company.  I  put  out  my  hand  to  steady  it. 
The  moment  my  flesh  touched  his,  a  sort  of  quiver 
ran  through  all  my  nerves;  and,  without  looking  at 
the  ring,  without  knowing  what  I  said,  without 
intending  it  indeed,  the  words  came,  — 

"Do  you  know  any  thing  of  Eliza  Wharton?  ” 

It  was  the  first  time  I  had  thought  of  her  since 
I  came  to  Hartford. 

My  companion’s  face  flushed  ;  his  eyes  seemed 
to  leap  out  of  his  head.  He  was  too  much  startled 
to  keep  his  secret  if  he  had  desired  to  do  so.  He 
leaned  over  the  seat,  and  whispered  slowly, — 

"  She  was  my  own  aunt !  ” 

I  looked  him  full  in  the  face,  knowing  well  that 


REUNION. 


57 


he  would  see  nothing  in  mine  but  tender  sympathy. 
"Then  I  have  something  of  hers  which  ought  to 
belong  to  you,”  I  said,  and  turned  to  explain  to 
Mrs.  Munson  ;  but  her  face  was  steadily  turned  away, 
and  the  throat  her  position  brought  into  view  was 
as  white  as  if  she  were  dead. 

It  was  Harriet  Hinsdale  Munson  who  had  found 
her  foster-brother ! 

Little  wonder  that  they  who  had  parted  in  the 
flush  and  beauty  of  ripening  years  did  not  recognize 
each  other  under  snowy  locks,  and  the  plump  out¬ 
lines  of  declining  years.  Not  another  word  did  we 
speak  till  the  train  ran  into  "Ore  Mountain,”  and 
we  found  the  platform  covered  with  masses  of  jetty 
stalagmite. 

Then  William  Wharton  scurried  down  upon  me 
like  a  kite,  hurried  me  into  a  chair,  sat  down  in 
front  of  me,  and  kept  watch  and  ward  till  I  had  told 
him  all  I  knew. 

Forcibly  enough  he  reminded  me  of  the  terrible 
Paul  Emanuel,  who  once  whisked  Lucy  Snowe  into 
the  dim  darkness  of  the  ghost-trodden  attic ;  not 
only  at  first,  but  again  when  the  saucers  of  ice¬ 
cream  came  about,  and  I  was  told  that  I  might  eat 
one,  two,  three,  if  I  liked,  but  I  was  to  do  it  quickly 
and  turn  back  to  my  strange  talk  ! 

"  How  should  he  know  that  I  liked  un  fetit 
■pCttd  a  la  crbne  ?  ” 

So  I  sat  there,  and  told  much  that  these  pages 
6 


58 


REUNION. 


have  revealed,  and  questioned  eagerly  of  all  I 
needed  to  know. 

Every  thing  confirmed  the  story  as  I  tell  it.  All 
that  he  knew  was,  that  Eliza  left  home  for  a  visit  to 
her  Boston  friends ;  that,  instead  of  passing  her 
last  night  in  Hartford  quietly  at  home,  she  sat  till 
daybreak  on  the  star-lighted  gambrel  roof  of  Wil¬ 
liam  Laurence’s  old  house  near  the  State  House 
Square,  and  sat  there  utterly  alone. 

At  the  time  no  one  could  solve  the  mystery  of  her 
fate. 

Jeremiah  Wadsworth,  her  cousin,  long  married, 
was  often  seen  to  leave  her  at  a  late  hour.  He 
had  been  in  France,  and  the  foreign  gold  she  had 
offered  at  the  bank  was  supposed  to  have  come  to 
her  from  him.  Whatever  the  truth  was,  it  is 
probable  that  he  knew  it. 

Year  after  year,  William  Wharton’s  father  and 
his  aunt  Abigail  took  the  mysterious  journey  con¬ 
cerning  which  my  Danvers  friend  had  questioned 
me;  till  at  last  the  old  horse  died,  the  old  chaise 
fell  to  pieces  where  it  stood,  and  the  two  travellers 
were  forced  to  give  up  the  pilgrimage. 

The  old  parsonage  burned  down;  its  treasures, 
bound  and  unbound,  crumbled  into  ashes.  So, 
alas !  did  the  beautiful  portrait  which  hung  over 
the  mantel.  As  a  child,  William  had  loved  it  and 
prattled  over  it,  but  not  a  word  came  in  answer  to 
his  questions  about  it;  and,  save  in  the  brief  utter- 


REUNION. 


59 


ance  which  told  him  whom  it  represented,  he  never 
heard  Elizabeth’s  name.  But  at  college  the  story 
found  him  out.  One  man,  whose  licentious  charac¬ 
ter  made  him  a  fit  object  of  suspicion,  was  named  in 
possible  connection  with  it,  in  spite  of  kinship,  mar¬ 
riage,  and  a  residence  forty  miles  away, —  a  suspi¬ 
cion  so  improbable  that,  in  order  to  justify  it,  the 
author  of  the  novel  founded  upon  Eliza’s  story  was 
obliged  to  represent  him  as  living  in  Hartford. 

His  whole  heart  fired  by  her  beautiful  memory, 
William  swore  that  if  ever  he  met  another  who  bore 
that  man’s  name,  he  would  shoot  him  on  the  spot ; 
but  he  did  meet  such  an  one  when  years  had  passed 
and  blood  was  cooler. 

They  met  in  summer  at  the  sea,  hunted  and 
fished  together,  and  William  never  made  his  secret 
known. 

The  Stanley  plate  had  never  been  found :  it  had 
passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and  he  was  still  in  quest 
of  it.  The  miniature  of  Eliza  and  the  Buckminster 
ring  had  gone  with  him  to  his  distant  home ;  but 
not  a  paper  that  her  hand  had  touched  had  his 
ever  held. 

These  things  were  not  told  in  a  moment.  Less 
docile  than  Lucy  Snowe,  I  darted  from  beneath 
his  guarding  hands,  to  see  that  my  companion  was 
guided  to  the  shaft  I  was  forbidden  to  see,  and  to 
beg  the  kind  Professor  Gray  to  break  away  some 
of  the  pillared  crystals  for  my  benefit. 


6o 


REUNION. 


Near  by,  I  found  Mrs.  Munson,  whom  in  his  ex¬ 
citement  and  haste  William  Wharton  had  left  by 
the  way.  Still  trembling,  she  exclaimed,  — 

"Oh,  how  could  you?  —  never  did  I  —  in  all 
those  years  —  I  thought  I  must  sink  into  the  grave 
when  I  heard  her  name  ;  but  tell  me,  what  shall  I 
do?  He  won’t  be  satisfied  till  he  knows  when  I 
heard  he  was  dead.  It  was  in  that  book ;  would 
you  tell  him?  ” 

"And  why  not?  ”  I  said.  "  The  story  is  a  hundred 
years  old.  We  are  not  children.” 

Before  I  could  say  any  more,  my  ancient  Pericles 
had  become  impatient,  and  came  with  out-stretched 
arm  to  bear  me  away.  Harriet  caught  him. 

"It  was  in  New  Orleans,”  she  said;  "in  the  very 
book  that  told  Eliza’s  story.  It  took  my  breath 
away.” 

"  Harriet,”  he  answered,  so  solemnly  that,  though 
he  only  bent,  I  seemed  to  see  him  lift  his  hat, 
"  Harriet,  I  read  my  own  death  there  !  ” 

Were  the  words  symbolical?  Might  not  his  life 
have  been  something  very  different,  if  that  tale  had 
never  been  told?  At  all  events,  Eliza’s  race  will  die 
with  him. 

As  we  turned  back  and  resumed  our  seats,  to 
talk  the  story  out,  I  found  that  William  Wharton, 
who  was  somewhat  sensitive  still  over  the  broken 
fortunes  of  his  family,  felt,  nevertheless,  a  strange 
pride  in  rehearsing  his  descent  from  that  Stanley 


REUNION. 


61 


who  had  been  Shakspere’s  friend ;  that  he  had  at 
his  tongue’s  end  all  the  legends,  traditions,  and 
anecdotes  connected  with  that  old  friendship,  and 
that  he  liked  still  to  think  of  the  old  plate  that  Thomas 
Stanley,  "  of  more  consequence  than  most,”  had 
brought  over  with  him.  I  know  not  how  widely 
these  traditions  have  been  spread,  but  I  thought  it 
pleasant  to  preserve  them.  As  to  the  plate,  there 
is  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  been  easily  found, 
had  not  the  proud  man  shrunk  from  recurring  to 
the  trials  and  perplexities  which  brought  about  its 
loss. 

When  we  parted,  it  was  to  meet  once  more  to 
read  over  Eliza’s  letters.  We  were  all  tremulous 
with  a  strange  delight  when  we  remembered  that 
she  who  had  waked  up  yester-morn  friendless  and 
poor,  shorn  of  all  the  natural  results  of  a  most  use¬ 
ful  life,  could  now  lie  down  in  peace,  sure  that  a 
friendly  hand  would  compose  her  to  her  rest. 

When,  the  next  morning,  the  excited  members  of 
the  Association  crowded  round  me,  and  begged  me 
to  write  out  the  story,  Professor  Lyman,  of  Yale 
College,  said,  — 

"Make  it  as  short  as  you  can.” 

Short ! 

“The  mills  of  God  grind  slowly,  yet  they  grind  exceeding  small ; 

Though  with  patience  He  stands  waiting,  with  exactness  grinds 
He  all.” 


PART  III 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


‘  But  he  that  writes  of  you,  if  he  can  tell 
That  you  are  you,  so  dignifies  his  story.” 

84 th  Sonnet.  Shakspere. 

‘Your  love  and  pity  doth  the  impression  fill 
Which  vulgar  scandal  stamped  upon  my  brow.” 

i\2th  Sonnet. 


EFORE  offering  to  the  reader  the  real  letters 


of  Eliza  Wharton,  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words 
concerning  the  story  which  bears  her  name. 

"Eliza  Wharton  ;  or,  The  Coquette,”  a  story  writ¬ 
ten  by  Mrs.  Hannah  Foster,  wife  of  the  minister 
at  Brighton,  Mass.,  whose  husband  was  also  a 
cousin  of  Eliza,  was  issued  soon  after  the  tragedy 
it  was  supposed  to  rehearse.  Mr.  Boyer  and  Major 
Sanford  were  immediately  identified  by  the  public 
with  Joseph  Buckminster  and  Pierrepont  Edwards ; 
and,  to  avoid  confusion,  I  shall  use  the  latter  names 
in  criticising  it. 

Eliza  is  represented  as  a  provincial  belle,  weary 
of  the  restraints  of  poverty  and  a  parsonage,  and 
ambitious  of  a  sphere  she  cannot  fitly  fill. 

After  Mr.  Howe’s  death,  which  is  made  to  follow 
her  father’s,  although  it  really  preceded  it,  she  is 
sent  to  New  Haven  in  search  of  gayety  and  diver¬ 


sion. 


66 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


Here  she  is  thrown  into  military  society,  and 
made  to  meet  Edwards  as  if  for  the  first  time.  In 
reality,  she  passed  her  time  when  at  New  Haven 
in  the  family  of  the  president  of  Yale  College,  and 
Edwards  was  her  cousin,  whom  she  had  known  as 
a  married  man  ever  since  he  was  nineteen,  —  some 
eighteen  years. 

Her  inquiries  into  his  habits  and  character 
pique  Edwards,  who,  in  formal  imitation  of  Love¬ 
lace,  is  made  to  assert  that  the  woman  who  un¬ 
dertakes  to  reform  him  deserves  whatever  fate 
impends ;  and  because  she  is  a  prude,  shall  be 
doomed.  But  the  real  Eliza  was  no  prude  :  she 
was  more  than  once  reproached  for  not  indicating 
by  her  manner  the  real  distinction  between  vice  and 
virtue. 

In  the  midst  of  his  courtship,  Edwards  marries 
for  money,  and,  when  married,  removes  into  Eliza’s 
neighborhood,  for  the  express  purpose  of  insulting 
with  his  attentions  the  woman  whom  Howe  and 
Buckminster  had  loved.  The  simple  fact  is,  that, 
married  at  nineteen,  before  he  ever  courted  any 
other  than  his  wife,  at  no  time  did  he  ever  live 
nearer  to  Hartford  than  New  Haven,  when  a  weekly 
post,  carried  by  a  man  on  horseback,  connected  the 
two  places. 

Eliza  is  once  made  to  say,  in  the  pages  of  the 
novel,  that,  in  literary  conversation,  Edwards  could 
not  bear  a  distinguished  part ;  but  it  is  certainly  time 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


67 


of  Edwards,  as  well  as  Aaron  Burr,  that  when  in 
the  society  of  women,  the  highest  culture,  the  most 
exquisite  wit,  and  a  perfect  savoir  fairc,  as  well  as 
a  sure  instinct  of  spiritual  things,  were  added  to 
that  foreign  grace  which  fitly  distinguished  the 
Irish  blood  derived  from  the  Dukes  of  Kings¬ 
ton. 

The  final  surrender  of  his  love  by  Buckminster, 
just  as  she  was  about  to  fix  her  wedding-day,  is 
made  to  turn  upon  the  fact  that  he  surprised  her 
in  a  private  interview  with  Edwards  in  the  arbor 
of  the  old  garden.  Citizens  of  Hartford  will  show 
you  to-day  the  paved  street  that  crosses  the  spot 
where  that  arbor  stood,  but  will  tell  you  at  the 
same  time  that  it  was  not  Edwards  whom  she  met 
there. 

After  this  issue,  the  novel  plunges  Eliza  into  de¬ 
jection  and  despair ;  but  my  letters  are  about  to 
show  her,  at  that  very  moment,  cheerful,  industri¬ 
ous,  and  useful. 

When  her  fatal  departure  draws  near,  the  novel 
represents  her  as  confessing  her  guilt,  confiding  in 
her  friend,  and  writing  to  her  mother ;  but  no  con¬ 
fession  passed  her  lips,  no  confidence  was  ever 
given,  no  letter  was  ever  written  by  her,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  all  the  circumstances  of  her 
departure  were  open  and  natural. 

The  novel  represents  her  as  carried  away  at 
night  by  her  seducer,  unknown  to  those  who  loved 


68 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


her.  In  simple  fact,  she  went  away  in  the  regular 
stage-coach,  at  high  noon,  with  everybody’s  warm 
approval. 

The  novel  describes  its  hero  as  aware  of  her 
retreat,  and  allows  him  to  represent  her  as  lectur¬ 
ing  him  with  the  innocent  air  of  a  Clarissa.  For 
her  sake,  his  injured  wife  quits  her  husband’s 
roof. 

But  these  are  the  fables  of  a  warm  imagination, 
intent  on  holding  out  Mrs.  Yorke’s  "blood-red  light” 
to  the  unwary,  and  heated  by  the  reading  of  Rich¬ 
ardson’s  novel. 

The  general  tone  of  the  letters  which  constitute 
the  novel  is  wholly  unlike  that  of  the  real  letters. 
They  indicate  a  style  of  living  and  manners  wholly 
different  from  the  actual  facts.  They  contain  con¬ 
fessions  of  volatility  which  Eliza  never  had  occasion 
to  make,  and  allusions  to  her  own  charms  and  the 
perplexities  in  which  they  involved  her,  unlike  the 
humble  and  modest  girl  she  really  showed  herself. 
In  reading  the  novel,  one  is  compelled  to  think  that 
for  the  heroine  the  pivot  of  the  world’s  history  is  her 
own  possible  marriage. 

If  the  real  Eliza  had  been  in  the  least  like  the 
heroine  of  the  book,  we  should  not  now  be  seeking 
in  vain  to  solve  the  mystery  of  her  fate. 

I  have  long  thought  that  there  is  no  form  of 
human  injustice  so  bitter  and  so  enduring  as  that 
perpetrated  by  the  author  of  an  historical  novel,  yet 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER.  69 


I  do  not  know  that  we  are  entitled  to  criticise  the 
use  made  of  these  materials. 

Charles  Kingsley,  in  the  most  brilliant  novel  of 
this  century,  has  wiped  out  every  trace  of  the  his¬ 
torical  Hypatia.  No  one  has  blamed  him  ;  yet,  I 
confess  that  to  deal  in  the  same  way  with  families 
in  our  own  midst  seems  to  me  a  more  reprehensi¬ 
ble  thing.  To  have  done  Eliza  any  justice,  the 
novel  should  have  stated  that  the  lovers  who  made 
her  misery,  and  those  whose  names  were  quoted  to 
her  disgrace,  were  all  in  nearly  the  same  degree 
her  kindred.  Aaron  Burr  and  Pierrepont  Edwards 
were  as  near  to  her  father,  through  the  Stoddards, 
as  Jeremiah  Wadsworth  or  Buckminster  himself. 

This  simple  fact  alters  the  whole  face  of  the  story  ; 
for  it  shows  that  the  only  persons  touched  by  the 
tongue  of  malice  or  curiosity  were  relatives  with 
whom  she  had  been  intimate  from  her  childhood. 
At  the  time  of  her  death,  Pierrepont  Edwards  was 
not  thirty-nine,  nor  was  Aaron  Burr  thirty -three. 
At  a  time  when  newspapers  hardly  existed,  —  when 
it  took  a  week  for  the  stage-coach  to  bring  the  news 
from  New  York  to  Hartford,  and  when  a  town  so 
small  had  few  points  of  contact  with  metropolitan 
life,  —  at  a*  time,  in  short,  when  these  two  extraordi¬ 
nary  men  were  still  young,  there  was  no  reason 
why  Eliza  Wharton  should  have  avoided  their  so¬ 
ciety,  or  have  suspected  what  might  hereafter  be 
charged  upon  the  tenor  of  their  lives. 


70 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


Buckminster  was  never  the  person  to  delight  in 
sentimental  talk,  as  the  novel  would  have  him  ;  and 
the  intrigues  by  which  he  initiates  his  courtship 
would  have  been  impossible  to  his  spirited  char¬ 
acter. 

No  reader  of  the  book  can  fail  to  see  that  there 
is  more  life  and  power  in  the  letters  of  Edwards 
than  in  those  of  the  heroine.  I  was  puzzled  to 
account  for  this,  until  it  suddenly  flashed  upon  me 
that  they  were  modelled  upon  those  of  Lovelace. 
I  think,  too,  that  the  influence  of  Richardson’s  story 
may  be  seen  wherever  the  author  departs  from  the 
facts.  Whoever  Eliza’s  lover  may  have  been,  he 
had  no  part  in  her  departure  from  home,  did  not 
accompany  her  flight ;  for  parts  of  letters  addressed 
to  him  from  every  point  between  Hartford  and  Dan¬ 
vers  were  found  among  her  papers.  That  she  ex¬ 
pected  to  meet  him  soon  after  arriving  at  her 
destination  is  as  certain  as  that  she  was  cruelly 
disappointed.  If  her  marriage,  which  must  have 
taken  place  in  or  near  Hartford,  was  a  legal  one, 
it  is  not  yet  too  late  for  the  name  of  her  husband 
to  transpire.  That  it  was  so,  I  infer  from  the  indi¬ 
cations  that  Jeremiah  Wadsworth  was  privy  to  the 
facts. 

Now,  Eliza  Wharton  was  not  only  a  gifted  but 
a  clear-headed  and  practical  woman.  She  had 
known  Edwards  ever  since  she  was  sixteen,  and 
Wadsworth  ever  since  she  was  twenty-one,  as  mar-" 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


71 


ried  men.  She  had  kept  herself  above  reproach 
during  the  impulsive  years ;  and  at  thirty-six  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  her  to  delude  her¬ 
self  into  the  belief  that  she  was  legally  married  to 
any  man  who  had  a  wife  living. 

"  Must  I  die  alone  ?  ”  she  wrote  (probably  from 
Watertown)  to  the  man  who  had  tortured  if  he  did 
not  deceive  her.  "Shall  I  never  see  you  more? 
I  know  that  you  will  come,  but  you  will  come  too 
late.  This  is,  I  fear,  my  last  ability.  Tears  fall 
so  fast  I  know  not  how  to  write.  Why  did  you 
leave  me  in  such  distress?  but  I  will  not  reproach 
you.  All  that  was  dear  I  forsook  for  you,  but  do 
not  regret  it.  May  God  forgive  in  both  what  was 
amiss.  When  I  go  from  here,  I  will  leave  you 
some  way  to  find  me.  If  I  die,  will  you  come  and 
drop  a  tear  over  my  grave  ?  ” 

These  words,  written  when  she  was  near  her  end, 
yet  while  she  expected  to  change  her  habitation 
before  the  birth  of  her  child,  show  no  sharp  remorse 
for  crime:  only  such  gentle  compunction  as  any 
womanly  soul  might  feel.  Nor  does  she  blame  her 
husband :  some  duty  might  have  kept  him  from 
her.  Was  he  near?  what  led  her  to  stop  at  Water- 
town  on  her  way  ?  Some  verses  written  at  the  same 
time  conclude,  — 

“  Oli  thou  for  whose  dear  sake  I  bear 
A  doom  so  dreadful,  so  severe, 

May  happy  Fates  thy  footsteps  guide, 

And  o’er  thy  peaceful  home  preside.” 


72 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


She  was  far  too  intelligent  a  woman  to  have 
prayed  thus  for  any  of  the  men  upon  whom  sus¬ 
picion  fell. 

A  better  poem  —  copied,  I  fancy,  from  some  Con¬ 
necticut  newspaper,  and  therefore  not  bearing  upon 
the  last  facts  of  her  life  — was  published  in  the  Pref¬ 
ace  to  the  edition  of  "The  Coquette,”  published  in 
1855.  She  speaks  in  it  of  her  lover’s  death,  and 
her  father’s,  of  her  entire  want  of  friendly  guidance 
through  the  following  years,  and  goes  on,  — 


“Again  the  admiring  youths  around  me  bowed, 
And  one  I  singled  from  the  sighing  crowd. 
Well-skilled  he  was  in  every  winning  art, 

To  warm  the  fancy  or  to  touch  the  heart. 

Why  must  my  pen  the  noble  praise  deny 
Which  virtue,  truth,  and  honor  should  supply? 
How  did  my  heart  embrace  the  dear  deceit, 
And  fondly  cherish  the  deluding  cheat, 
Delusive  hopes,  and  wishes  sadly  vain, 

Unless  to  sharpen  disappointment’s  pain!” 


As  this  begins,  — 

“Thy  presents  to  some  happier  lover  send, 
Content  thyself  to  be  Lucinda’s  friend,” 


I  think  it  must  refer  to  a  time  when  she  was  still 
sought  in  marriage,  and  bewildered  by  many  lovers. 
To  the  opinions  held  of  her  in  her  own  home,  the 
stone  set  up  at  Danvers  furnishes  the  only  clue. 
As  the  inscription  is  now  illegible,  it  should  be 
preserved. 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


73 


THIS  HUMBLE  STONE, 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ELIZA  WHARTON, 

IS  INSCRIBED  BY  HER  WEEPING  FRIENDS,  TO  WHOM  SHE 
ENDEARED  HERSELF 

BY  UNCOMMON  TENDERNESS  AND  AFFECTION. 
ENDOWED  WITH  SUPERIOR  ACQUIREMENTS,  SHE  WAS  STILL  MORE 
DISTINGUISHED 

BY  HUMILITY  AND  BENEVOLENCE. 

LET  CANDOR  THROW  A  VEIL  OVER  HER  FRAILTIES,  FOR  GREAT 
WAS  HER  CHARITY  TO  OTHERS. 

SHE  SUSTAINED  THE  LAST  PAINFUL  SCENE 
FAR  FROM  EVERY  FRIEND, 

AND  EXHIBITED  AN  EXAMPLE  OF  CALM  RESIGNATION. 

HER  DEPARTURE  WAS  ON  THE  25TH  OF  JULY,  17S8,  IN  THE  37TH 
YEAR  OF  HER  AGE. 

THE  TEARS  OF  STRANGERS  WATERED  HER  GRAVE. 

Mrs.  Locke’s  preface  to  the  edition  of  1855  is 
more  misleading  than  the  novel  to  which  it  is  pre¬ 
fixed.  The  facts  are  wrongly  adjusted.  Eliza’s 
father  had  been  dead  twelve  years  at  the  time  of 
her  death ;  and  it  was  more  than  thirty  years  after 
her  mother’s  death  that  the  old  house  at  Hartford 
was  burned,  with  its  treasures. 

This  preface  assumes  the  marriage  of  Eliza, 
distinctly  states  that  the  Hon.  Pierrepont  Edwards 
was  the  father  of  her  child,  and  does  not  admit  the 
fact  of  his  marriage  to  another  previous  to  Eliza’s 
death. 


7 


74 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


But  this  is  all  wrong.  Pierrepont  Edwards  was 
married  to  Miss  Ogden,  of  Princeton,  N.  J.,  in  1769, 
when  he  was  a  boy  of  nineteen.  He  was  never 
separated  from  her,  and  she  lived  until  1795,  seven 
years  after  Eliza  Wharton’s  death. 

When,  relying  on  Eliza’s  cousinly  correspondence 
with  him,  the  unhappy  mother  wrote  to  ask  if  he 
knew  where  her  daughter  was,  he  replied  curtly, 
with  an  oath,  that  he  "wished  to  God  he  did,” —  a 
wish  that  any  friend  of  hers  might  have  shared  ;  and 
if  the  appearance  of  "foreign  gold”  in  her  hands 
had  any  significance,  it  surely  did  not  point  towards 
him. 

Every  feeling  heart  must  be  glad  to  acquit  this 
strange  man  of  a  crime  the  basest  could  hardly 
have  resolved  upon  under  the  same  circumstances, 
and  which  he  certainly  never  confessed. 

But  if  Edwards  steadily  denied  this  story,  why 

was  it  never  authoritativelv  confuted  in  the  life- 

•/ 

time  of  her  mother  ?  Simply  because  Edwards’s  own 
peculiarities,  clearly  recognized  in  later  years,  made 
his  denial  valueless,  until  the  true  actor  in  these 
scenes  claimed  his  rightful  place ;  simply  because 
the  broken-hearted  family  could  not  do  for  her  as 
she  would  certainly  have  done  for  them.  After  her 
death,  no  one  of  her  family  showed  the  courage 
such  a  step  would  require.  I  have  not  been  able  to 
ascertain  the  date  of  the  first  edition  of  "  Eliza  Whar¬ 
ton  ;  ”  but  I  cannot  think  it  was  published  during  her 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


75 


mother’s  life.  The  thought  of  Pierrepont  Edwards 
carries  us  back  to  the  Stanley  and  Pierrepont 
graves  in  "Thong  Church,”  and  recalls  a  passage 
in  his  father’s  diary  without  which  our  story  would 
be  incomplete.  The  "  mad  blood  ”  of  the  Dukes  of 
Kingston,  which  had  surged  through  the  eccentric 
veins  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  which  had 
impelled  her  unhappy  son  to  a  worse  than  gypsy 
life,  yet  was  always  associated  with  a  powerful 
intellect  and  unnumbered  charms,  seemed  to  leap 
aside  from  Sarah  Pierrepont,  of  whom  her  husband 
wrote,  while  he  was  still  a  boy,  words  that  have 
a  curious  fascination  when  associated  in  our  minds 
with  the  metaphysics  of  his  desponding  brain. 

"  They  say  that  there  is  a  young  lady,  only  fourteen 
years  old,  in  New  Haven,  who  is  beloved  of  that 
great  Being  who  made  and  rules  the  world  ;  and 
that  there  are  certain  seasons  in  which  this  Great 
Being,  in  some  way  or  other  invisible,  comes  to  her 
aid,  fills  her  mind  with  exceeding  sweet  delight, 
and  that  she  hardly  cares  for  any  thing  except  to 
meditate  on  Him  ;  that  she  expects  after  a  while 
to  be  received  up  where  He  is,  being  assured  that 
He  loves  her  too  well  to  let  her  remain  at  a  distance 
from  Him  always.  She  has  a  strange  sweetness  in 
her  mind,  and  a  singular  purity  in  her  affections,  and 
you  could  not  persuade  her  to  do  any  thing  wrong, 
though  you  should  give  her  all  the  world. 

"  She  will  go  from  place  to  place,  singing  sweetly, 


7  6 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


and  seems  to  be  full  of  joy,  and  no  one  knows  for 
what.” 

"  And  no  one  knows  for  what  ” !  What  a  story 
this  tells  of  the  Christian  cheer  of  that  generation  ! 
This  divine  creature  Jonathan  Edwards  made 
first  the  mother  of  his  reckless  and  gifted  son 
Pierrepont ;  and,  second,  through  a  most  lovely 
daughter,  the  grandmother  of  Aaron  Burr,  —  two 
men  as  abnormal  and  as  little  to  be  judged  in  our 
narrow  knowledge  as  George  Gordon  Byron  him¬ 
self. 

How  could  the  unhappy  man  help  believing  in 
predestination  and  original  sin? 

Yet  of  this  same  stock  came  John  Pierpont  of 
Hollis  Street,  hero  and  bard  ! 

It  is  perhaps  necessary,  in  closing  this  review,  to 
allude  to  a  jcu  d'es^prit,  published  at  the  time  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Bell  Tavern,  some  years  ago,  by 
Fitch  Poole,  late  keeper  of  the  Peabody  Institute 
in  Peabody,  and  recently  deceased  at  an  advanced 
age.  It  purported  to  describe  letters  and  articles 
secreted  in  the  house.  Pleasantly  intended  as  it 
was,  on  the  first  day  of  April,  it  seemed  to  my 
mind  only  a  cruel  and  revolting  hoax. 

In  printing  the  following  passages  from  the  only 
original  papers  of  Eliza  Wharton  known  to  exist, 

I  have  extracted  from  the  personal  detail  of  pages, 
never  intended  to  be  printed,  such  passages  as 
indicate  her  characteristics,  her  companions,  and  her 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


77 


employments.  They  were  written  between  her 
twenty-ninth  and  thirty-second  year,  under  circum¬ 
stances  a  little  peculiar. 

Eliza  Wharton  had  met  Joel  Barlow  and  Ruth 
Baldwin,  to  whom  he  was  even  then  engaged  to  be 
married,  at  a  Christmas  party  in  New  Haven  in 
1778.  At  a  game  of  forfeits,  Joel  and  Eliza  were 
ordered  to  conduct  towards  each  other  as  man  and 
wife  for  the  whole  evening.  They  appear  to  have 
carried  out  the  game  with  great  spirit,  adopting  the 
nine  Muses  as  their  children.  Melpomene,  the 
reputed  favorite  of  Barlow,  well  known  already  as 
a  poet,  is  frequently  caricatured  in  this  correspond¬ 
ence  as  £hiammcny. 

Of  Barlow  himself — of  his  high  character,  his 
great  services,  and  noble  projects  —  it  is  to  be  hoped 
the  country  will  }’et  hear  adequately  through  a 
biographer  who  has  already  been  at  work  for 
twenty-five  years.  His  wife,  constantly  called  his 
"second  wife”  in  this  correspondence,  was  Ruth 
Baldwin,  daughter  of  the  Hon.  Michael  Baldwin,  of 
New  Haven,  by  his  first  marriage.  She  was  one 
of  the  loveliest  and  best  of  women,  to  whose  influence 
her  husband  always  attributed  his  worldly  success. 
His  sense  of  her  worth  can  be  best  estimated  by 
reading  a  letter  written  to  her  by  him  at  Algiers,  in 
1796,  and  published  in  the  "New  Englander”  for  July, 
1873.  The  Barlows  never  had  any  children  ;  but 
Mrs.  Barlow  ultimately  adopted  her  step-sister, 


78 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


twenty  years  younger  than  herself,  —  an  exquisite 
creature,  who,  after  refusing  an  offer  of  marriage 
from  General  Lafayette,  married  later  in  life  Colonel 
Bomford,  of  the  city  of  Washington.  Mrs.  Bomford 
was  for  more  than  forty  years  the  idolized  corre¬ 
spondent  of  George  William  Erving,  at  one  time 
our  minister  to  Spain.  It  is  probable  that  Joel 
Barlow’s  marriage  was  opposed  by  the  lady’s  fam¬ 
ily  on  the  ground  of  poverty.  He  was  married 
when  his  bride  was  away  upon  a  visit,  and  it  was 
long  before  the  offence  was  forgiven.  One  of  her 
brothers  —  the  Hon.  Abraham  Baldwin  —  was  a 
tutor  at  Yale  when  these  letters  were  written,  was 
afterwards  President  of  the  University  of  Georgia, 
a  member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Constitution,  and  an  United  States  senator  until 
his  death. 

Henry,  of  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  was  one  of  the  Judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

The  "Mr.  Dwight”  so  affectionately  described  by 
Eliza  was  the  honored  President  of  Yale,  busy 
about  this  time  in  altering  Watts’s  Hymns,  with  Joel 
Barlow.  Distinguished  afterward  for  more  things 
than  this  article  has  space  to  mention,  he  had 
already  served  in  the  field,  and  was  keeping  school 
at  Wethersfield,  where  we  find  Eliza  on  a  visit  to 
his  family. 

The  "Webster”  of  the  letters  was  famous  in  the 
spelling-books  of  past  generations,  and  closed  a  life, 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER.  79 

in  1843,  chiefly  memorable  for  political  pamphlets 
and  the  "  great  dictionary.” 

Dr.  Buckminster  was  the  famous  clergyman  of 
Portsmouth,  N.H.,  and  the  Burrs  were  an  uncle  and 
aunt  of  Aaron  Burr,  who  lived  at  Fairfield,  Conn. 

Dr.  Ezra  Stiles,  the  grandfather  of  Dr.  Chan- 
ning’s  beloved  successor,  was  one  of  Eliza’s  most 
valued  friends.  He  had  been  called  to  the  pulpit 
in  Portsmouth,  before  Buckminster ;  but  he  was 
also  called  to  Yale  College,  and  the  ministry 
unanimously  demanded  his  acceptance  of  the  last 
call.  He  was  distinguished  not  only  by  his  learn¬ 
ing,  but  by  an  earnest  sincerity,  and  a  genial, 
tender  charity  to  all,  which  his  distinguished  grand¬ 
son  seemed  to  have  inherited.  If  people  are  to  be 
judged  by  the  company  they  keep,  the  friends  and 
correspondents  of  this  woman  entitle  the  mysteries 
of  her  life  to  more  than  common  consideration. 

Dr.  Stiles  had  married  Elizabeth  Hubbard,  in 
1757  ;  and  the  Betsy  Stiles  of  these  letters  was  his 
oldest  daughter,  younger  than  Eliza,  but  one  of  her 
dearest  friends  until  the  hour  when  she  left  her 
home.  It  was  to  such  friendships  as  these  that  her 
visits  to  New  Haven  owed  their  charm.  At  the 
date  of  these  letters,  Dr.  Stiles  seems  to  have  been 
living  in  the  family  of  his  predecessor  at  Yale. 

Most  of  the  persons  mentioned  were  afterwards 
members  of  the  famous  "  Club  of  Hartford  Wits,” 
whose  influence  was  felt  throughout  the  country. 


8o 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


An  irregular  paper,  called  "  The  Anarchiad,”  was 
issued  from  it,  to  which  the  persons  I  have  named 
largely  contributed ;  and  its  keen  satire  greatly 
abridged  the  reign  of  misrule  which  followed  the 
Revolutionary  war.  It  may  be  thought  that  I  pre¬ 
serve  some  very  trivial  paragraphs.  I  do  it  in 
justice  to  a  character  much  misrepresented,  and  to 
show  how  delicate  was  the  author’s  playfulness 
under  circumstances  which  would  certainly  have 
betrayed  coarseness  had  it  existed.  Let  it  be  re¬ 
membered  that  these  letters  represent  the  era  of 
Clarissa  Harlowe  and  Dorcasina  Shelton. 

Unless  otherwise  indicated,  the  following  letters 
were  all  written  by  Eliza  Wharton  at  Hartford,  to 
Joel  Barlow  at  New  Haven.  She  is  returning  from 
her  visit,  and  writes  first  from 

“Hartford,  Feb.  19,  1779. 

"You  will  easily  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that 
your  letter  was  the  most  welcome  thing  imaginable. 

"  I  feared  I  should  have  no  letters  this  week  when 
somebody  was  so  good  as  to  call  and  leave  me  five. 
Which  do  you  think  I  read  first?  You  are  cer¬ 
tainly  the  paragon  of  husbands.  Were  all  married 
men  like  you,  what  a  happy  world  for  our  sex  ! 

"I  have  been  walking  half  a  mile  in  the  mud  this 
evening.  I  believe  you  will  think  that  the  mud 
is  my  element,  and  that  I  have  a  particular  delight 
in  it  to  immerse  myself  again  so  soon,  when  that 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


8l 


contracted  on  my  journey  is  scarce  brushed  off. 
I  did  not  get  home  till  Friday,  nor  would  I  have 
come  then,  for  the  roads  were  intolerable;  but  I 
grew  impatient  for  letters.  I  knew  I  could  not 
have  them  where  I  was,  nor  could  I  bear  to  think 
of  their  waiting  for  me  at  Hartford.  I  stayed  three 
or  four  days  at  Southington,  to  rest  after  my  trouble¬ 
some  adventures.  There  could  not  be  a  better 
place,  for  to  eat  and  drink  is  all  we  have  to  do  ! 
It  was  a  change  from  New  Haven,  and  all  for  the 
worse.  Yet  the  peaceful,  unruffled  life  one  leads 
in  such  a  place  has  its  charms.  To  rise  in  the 
morning  and  lay  your  plan  for  the  day,  knowing 
almost  to  a  certainty  that  nothing  will  happen  to 
interrupt  it ;  to  read  and  work  alternately  ;  then,  seek 
for  diversion,  some  country  sport  among  your  family 
and  neighbors  ;  to  find  yourself  quite  out  of  Am¬ 
bition’s  way,  and  in  the  very  bosom  of  content,  — this 
certainly  is  agreeable,  and  never  more  so  than  when 
one  has  met  with  trouble  in  a  busier  place.  I  felt 
myself  no  longer  afraid  when  a  certain  subject  was 
started.  I  neither  trembled  nor  turned  pale,  but 
sat  at  my  ease  and  felt  as  if  nobody  would  hurt  me. 
I  know  you  will  laugh  at  me  for  a  pusillanimous 
creature  for  being  ever  so  afraid  as  you  have  seen 
me  ;  but  I  cannot  help  it. 

"  If  Mr.  B.  is  with  you,  give  my  kindest  love  to 
him.  You  won’t  be  jealous  :  that  is  my  foible  ! 

"  Thank  you  for  writing  at  that  late  hour  when  you 


82 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


must  have  been  fatigued  with  dissimulation.  Was 
the  question  you  mention  agitated  at  your  meeting? 
I  don’t  believe  there  was  a  clergyman  there,  or  he 
would  have  got  it  determined  in  a  different  manner. 
I  wish  the  ladies  would  get  up  a  disputing  club  ! 

"You  are  my  constant  boast  among  my  married 
acquaintance.  Tell  my  little  rogue  of  a  brother  that 
I  think  he  takes  too  much  upon  himself  in  laughing 
at  our  connection. 

"As  to  Mr.  Baldwin,  if  he  were  at  the  door,  I 
would  not  run  into  the  cupboard  to  avoid  him.  He 
may  mean  well,  in  writing  all  to  Buckminster  and 
nothing  to  me  ;  but  I  do  not  think  it. 

"You  mention  in  one  of  your  letters,  your  having 
been  at  Mr.  Burr’s.  Why  did  you  not  tell  me  how 
you  liked  those  good  folks,  and  whether  you  could 
divine  how  they  liked  you?  Make  my  compliments 
to  all  the  President’s  family,  not  forgetting  Dr. 
Ezra  Stiles,  to  whom  I  esteem  myself  under  the 
greatest  obligation.  Tell  Mr.  Baldwin  that  Captain 
Wooster  was  told  here  of  my  having  had  the  small¬ 
pox,  which  he  would  desire  him  not  to  mention,  if  it  is 
not  too  late.  I  hope  it  will  not  get  much  about,  for 
I  shall  want  to  go  to  New  Haven  again  some  time. 
Did  you  have  an  agreeable  ball  last  evening?  I 
was  there  in  imagination  :  did  }’ou  see  any  thing 
of  me?  I  had  an  invitation,  but  it  was  rather  too 
muddy  to  come  in  any  other  way.” 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


83 


“February  22,  1779. 

"You  may  remember  we  talked  of  a  correspondence 
of  that  unreserved  kind  which  you  are  so  happy  as 
to  enjoy  with  Mr.  Swift,  in  which  all  disguises  are 
thrown  oft',  and  you  mention  every  good  and  ill 
quality  to  each  other,  in  the  same  terms  that  you 
consider  them  in  your  own  souls.  I  was  struck 
with  the  advantages  which  must  result  if  such  a 
correspondence  could  be  maintained  without  de¬ 
stroying  friendship  ;  and  I  am  willing  to  believe  that, 
in  hearts  so  well  regulated  as  yours,  this  is  possible. 
Besides,  in  you  the  virtues  so  far  prevail  that  you 
cannot  have  much  which  is  disagreeable  to  hear ; 
but,  with  the  generality  of  the  world,  you  are  sensible 
this  would  not  do. 

"  Few,  very  few,  can  bear  to  be  told  of  their  faults  ; 
and  few,  very  few,  will  tell  them  to  one’s  own  ear. 
I  confess  to  you,  though  perhaps  you  will  think  it 
a  foolish  diffidence,  that  I  am  always  loath  to  riske 
this  trial  of  the  friend  I  love.  It  would  look  too  much 
like  arrogance  in  me  to  pick  flaws  in  my  friends, 
who,  as  you  say,  are  the  worthiest  and  most  amiable 
people  in  the  world,  and  too  much  my  superiors  to 
come  under  my  observation.  This  is  written  to 
excuse  me  from  a  condition  you  would  have  me 
agree  to.  Yet  I  would  have  you  perform  your  part. 
Lay  aside  all  partiality  for  the  'wife  of  your  talk,’ 
and  tell  her  what  is  wrong  in  her  character  and 
conduct.  It  may  happen  to  you  as  it  did  to  Mirabel 


84  THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


in  the  play*  who  studied  the  faults  of  his  mistress 
until  they  grew  so  familiar  that  he  could  think  of 
them  without  the  least  uneasiness,  and  liked  her 
none  the  less. 

"  Pray  how  does  our  family  of  Muses  do?  I  hope 
you  do  not  keep  them  in  idleness.  I  know  you  have 
other  cares,  still  I  wish  you  to  superintend  them  a 
little  by  way  of  relaxation,  and  above  all  things  I 
want  you  to  send  me  a  sample  of  the  work  they  do, 
whether  great  or  small. 

"Your  friend  Jacob’s  poetry  has  some  flat  lines  in 
it,  which  I  dare  say  you  observed  and  could  wish 
you  had  altered.  „ 

"I  have  just  been  reading  'The  Prospect  of  Peace,’ 
which  you  gave  me,  but  to  make  it  complete  it 
wants  the  commendatory  verses  you  promised.  Pray 
send  them.  Have  you  heard  from  your  'second 
wife’?  I  love  her  because  you  do,  and  wish  to 
hear  all  about  her.” 

“March  17,  1779. 

"I  am  unspeakably  obliged  by  your  last  charming 
packet.  I  know  not  how  to  thank  you  as  I  ought ; 
but,  could  you  be  sensible  of  the  delight  it  gave  me, 
you  would  feel  yourself  in  some  measure  repaid,  for 
I  know  that  benevolent  heart  of  yours  loves  to  give 
pleasure.  I  longed  to  write  you  by  the  post,  but 
was  forced  to  write  letters  to  Boston.  Our  acquaint¬ 
ance  has  a  claim  upon  our  time.  Gratitude  and 
nature  forbid  us  to  neglect  those  with  whom  we 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


85 


have  spent  social  hours.  Before  I  go  any  further 
I  must  tell  you  how  sorry  I  am  that  you  should 
have  been  so  ill  received  at  Mr.  B.’s  through  a 
mistake  and  on  my  account.  I  will  have  that 
mistake  rectified,  so  say  nothing  against  it.  I 
cannot  bear  that  you  should  suffer  so  much  for  my 
sake.  I  cannot  conceive  where  Mrs.  B.  got  her 
intelligence,  or  who  gaxeyoti  yours.  Some  meddling 
or  malicious  as  well  as  misinformed  person  gave 
the  first,  no  doubt.  I  wish  I  could  repay  you  and 
one  other  friend  for  the  kind  part  you  have  taken 
in  it. 

"  I  am  exceedingly  sorry  for  Mr.  Baldwin’s  illness. 
Tell  him  so :  I  wish  I  were  near  enough  to  pay 
back  a  little  of  his  tender  care. 

"Do  you  know,  I  think  my  brother  improves 
greatly  under  your  auspices  ?  Let  me  bespeak  your 
kind  attention  to  him.  Form  his  taste,  if  you  can, 
to  those  things  you  yourself  admire,  to  books  and 
study.  Beside  the  improving,  these  afford  rational 
amusement  to  the  mind.  These  are  safe  pleasures  ; 
but  oh,  what  deceitful  ones  lurk  in  the  world  to 
catch  the  unwary  !  My  poor  boy  will  be  particularly 
disposed  to  be  led  astray  by  these,  unless  his  friends 
protect  him.  He  is  uncommonly  influenced  by  the 
company  he  keeps. 

"I  want  to  gratify  you,  and  have  searched  a  great 
deal  for  the  lines  I  wrote  on  P.  E.’s  death.  I  gave 
them  to  Mr.  Dwight,  and  never  took  a  copy.  I 


86 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


will  get  them  if  I  can ;  but  you  must  not  expect  to 
find  one  of  the  thousand  beauties  I  admire  in  yours. 

I  shall  be  more  fond  of  Shenstone  than  ever,  since 
he  has  raised  a  spirit  of  emulation  in  you.  Did  I 
ever  tell  you  that  I  thought  your  genius  and  char¬ 
acter  a  little  resembled  his?  —  though  the  first,  I 
believe,  has  more  elevation.  May  your  life  be 
longer  and  happier  than  that  of  the  poet  of  the 
Leasowes  !  If  these  are  your  first  attempts  at  elegy, 
you  have  succeeded  to  admiration ;  yet  I  have  been 
trying  to  find  some  fault,  and  perhaps  I  could,  for 
I  read  with  all  the  malice  of  a  friend!  I  hate  to 
send  you  this  rumpled  sheet,  but  Matt  threatened 
to  see  it,  and  I  almost  destroyed  it  in  defending  it 
from  him  ;  and  I  would  not  care  if  I  had  quite,  had 
I  time  to  write  another.  Late  as  it  is,  I  must  write 
to  my  brother.” 

“March  29,  1779. 

"  All  that  ever  I  have  heard  or  read  of  the  pleas¬ 
ures  and  advantages  of  a  married  life  is  nothing  to 
what  I  have  experienced  since  my  conhection  with 
you.  ’Tis  now  about  three  months  since  we  entered 
that  happy  state ;  and  I  do  not  see  but  it  gives 
me  as  much  joy  as  at  the  first  moment,  and  your 
letters  seem  to  express  the  same  sentiment. 

"  Indeed,  I  believe  we  are  peculiarly  fortunate. 
Some  of  my  friends  this  way  will  have  it,  ’tis  only 
because  we  are  separated  that  we  agree  so  well, 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


87 


and  say  so  many  soft  things  to  each  other ;  but  I 
am  not  obliged  to  believe  them,  and  am  sure  could 
they  see  us  together  they  would  alter  their  opinion. 
Nay,  Rochefoucauld  himself  would  own  that  our 
marriage  was  rather  delightful  than  convenient ;  but 
I  must  leave  this  charming  subject,  to  make  room 
for  the  next  most  agreeable,  —  poetry.  The  liberty 
which  you  allow  me  of  criticising  yours  is  more 
flattering  than  your  compliments ;  and,  knowing  all 
apology  unnecessary,  I  shall  make  use  of  it. 

"There  are  so  many  beauties  in  your  elegies,  that 
it  looks  like  envy  or  ill-nature  to  pass  them  and 
dwell  upon  the  few  faults ;  but  you  know  that  I  do 
not  leave  them  unnoticed  or  unadmired.  If  you 
will  have  me  find  fault,  I  can  do  it  in  a  few  in¬ 
stances  with  the  expression.  The  sentiments  are 
everywhere  beautiful,  just,  and  above  all  criticism. 
I  do  not  like  the  word  which  introduces  the  first 
elegy  ;  yet  I  do  not  very  well  know  what  I  would 
have  substituted,  or  why  I  dislike  it.  Perhaps  you 
can  tell.  From  thence  to  the  fourth  verse  I  like 
entirely ;  and  the  last  couplet  of  that  is  certainly 
extremely  beautiful.  In  the  first  the  thought  is 
beautiful,  but  I  do  not  think  it  happily  expressed. 
The  other  elegy  is  my  favorite,  because  of  the  sub¬ 
ject,  which  you  have  touched  so  tenderly  that  while 
it  melts  me  into  tears  it  charms.  I  have  made  one 
or  two  slight  alterations  in  it,  too  trifling  to  men¬ 
tion, —  only  of  single  words.  I  must  tell  you,  I  have 


88 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


ventured  so  far  as  to  give  a  copy  to  the  mother  of 
the  sweet  little  child,  but  without  your  name,  and 
she  seemed  disposed  to  give  your  '  wife  ’  the  credit 
of  writing  it.  I  wish  she  were  capable  of  it.  Why 
are  you  gloomy?  You  must  not  be.  Expect  every 
thing,  hope  every  thing,  and  do  every  thing  to  make 
your  circumstances  agreeable.  Tell  Mr.  B.  I  am 
half  uneasy  that  I  do  not  hear  from  him,  and  some¬ 
times  fear  he  is  offended  with  me.  If  it  is  only 
because  he  is  taken  up  with  writing  Buckminster, 
I  forgive  him.  Give  my  kind  love  to  Ruth,  and  let 
me  know  when  she  returns.  What  you  say  of  my 
brother  pleases  me ;  but  is  it  possible  for  him  to  be 
steady  in  any  thing  that  is  good?  He  is  a  flighty 
little  fellow.” 

The  triviality  of  the  following  letter  I  copy,  on 
account  of  the  allusion  to  Buckminster :  — 


“April  15,  1779. 

"Your  last  letter  was  one  of  the  most  agreeable. 
I  began  to  fear  that  absence  had  cooled  your  affec¬ 
tion  ;  that  your  'second  wife’  was  returned,  or  that 
you  had  found  another;  in  short,  my  head  was  full 
of  a  thousand  disagreeables :  but  now  I  have  no 
room  for  complaint,  and  am  resolved  no  idle  jeal¬ 
ousies  shall  disturb  the  uncommon  felicity  of  my 
lot  in  you,  who  are  certainly  the  faithfulest  and  best 
of  husbands.  If  you  must  know  who  I  think  you 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER.  89 


resemble,  or,  rather,  who  you  sometimes,  by  some¬ 
thing  in  your  manner,  put  me  in  mind  of,  it  is 
Buckminster. 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  at  last  been  sincere  with 
your 'wife.’  What  you  observe  is  extremely  just, 
—  that  I  do  not  make  a  proper  difference  in  my 
conduct  between  the  worthless  and  the  worthy,  — 
but,  trust  me,  in  my  heart  I  make  the  due  distinc¬ 
tion.  Your  'plan’  pleases  me  extremely.  Whether 
it  is  romantic  or  not,  I  am  not  as  yet  able  to  judge  ; 
but  I  have  done  nothing  but  fancy  fine  things  for 
you  ever  since  I  saw  it. 

"  If  I  were  to  give  the  soberest  opinion  I  can 
frame,  I  should  say  the  foundation  was  laid  in  rea¬ 
son  ;  but  your  romantic  imagination  had  a  little  share 
in  the  finishing.  I  long  to  know  what  story  you 
will  fix  upon  for  a  poem  of  some  eminence.  It  will 
not  do  for  you  much  longer  only  to  coquet  with 
the  Muses.  Pray,  why  do  neither  Ruth  nor  her 
brother  write  one  word  for  so  long?  Tell  Betsy 
Stiles  that  within  a  few  days  she  will  see  some  one 
that  I  love  dearly,  and  she  does  not  hate.  You  may 
expect  a  little  volume  of  satire  upon  your  life,  con¬ 
versation,  and  manners,  as  soon  as  I  can  get  time 
and  spirits  to  write  it.” 

“  April  29,  1779. 

"I  have  very  little  time,  for  I  am  obliged  to  steal 
it  from  the  most  agreeable  company  in  the  world  :  I 
mean  my  Wethersfield  friends,  with  whom  I  am 

8 


9° 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


so  happy  as  to  be  upon  a  visit  for  the  first  time  since 
my  return. 

"O  Joel,  to  see  Samuel  bending  his  course  to¬ 
wards  New  Haven  is  enough  to  make  me  wish  to 
leave  even  this  agreeable  place  !  I  want  to  hear 
from  you  extremely,  especially  from  our  dear  Muses. 
Pray  send  me  word  how  they  do,  or  rather  let  them 
speak  for  themselves  on  paper.  I  intended  to  send 
you  with  this  a  piece  which,  if  you  have  not  read  it, 
will  please  you.  It  is  called  'The  Shipwreck,’  not 
very  correct,  and  written  by  an  unlearned  author, 
but  full  of  native  beauties.  I  have  heard  one  piece 
of  news  from  New  Haven  that  surprises  me ;  this 
is,  that  our  French  master,  Mons.  Beautonaux,  is 
married.  If  this  is  so,  we  may,  I  presume,  take  the 
merit  to  ourselves ;  for  nothing  but  the  sight  of  our 
uncommon  felicity  could  have  wrought  such  a  mira¬ 
cle  on  the  old  man  !  Pray  send  me  word  whom  he 
married,  and  whether  Dr.  Stiles  married  them.” 

“May  io,  1779. 

"I  have  spent  the  evening  in  company  before 
walking  half  a  mile.  It  is  now  one  o’clock.  Judge, 
then,  if  I  can  pretend  to  find  fault  with  you  at  pres¬ 
ent?  No,  really:  I  am  too  tired  and  too  good  hu¬ 
mored  ;  but  for  your  encouragement  I  will  tell  you 
that  I  have  a  sheet  full  of  hints  and  sketches  in  that 
way  which  I  have  taken  down  when  I  felt  most  dis¬ 
posed  to  be  severe,  and  I  intend  to  work  them  into  a 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER.  91 

sort  of  satire  at  the  first  opportunity.  I  heard  last 
night  from  Mr.  Dwight  that  he  will  soon  take  a 
journey  to  camp.  He  will  certainly  either  go  or  re¬ 
turn  by  way  of  New  Haven,  so  you  will  be  able  to 
consult  him  yourself.  I  fervently  wish  you  may, 
for  I  know  of  no  person  so  capable  of  advising  you. 
I  shall  depend  upon  seeing  you  before  you  set  out 
on  your  tour.” 

“June  8,  1779. 

"Betsy  Stiles  is  in  town:  you  will  easily  believe 
that  it  gives  me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  to  see  her ; 
but  it  makes  me  wish  even  more  for  you,  and  a  few 
more  New  Haven  friends  with  whom  we  used  to 
spend  our  social  evenings.  You  will  see  Mr.  Dwight 
before  I  shall.  When  I  do  see  him  I  shall  not  forget 
you.  I  am  sorry  Swift  is  'mad  with  the  world.’ 
You  must  get  his  fit  over  as  soon  as  you  can.  Come 
and  see  him,  and  you  will  put  us  both  in  good  humor. 
Pray  keep  your  promise  and  write  oftener.  I  wish 
there  had  been-a  dozen  Miss  Salmonses,  if  you  would 
have  given  each  of  them  a  letter.” 

“July  >779- 

"I  would  not  send  such  worthless  letters,  if  I  ever 
knew  of  an  opportunity  half  an  hour  beforehand. 
We  live  here,  especially  in  the  summer  time,  a  life 
of  pleasurable  dissipation,  and  have  so  much  com¬ 
pany  that  it  is  almost  impossible,  how  much  soever 
one  may  think  of  an  absent  friend,  to  steal  a  moment 


y2  THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 

for  him.  I  am  quite  impatient  for  you  to  come  and 
see  us.  I  only  wait  my  sister  Polly’s  return  to  urge 
it  with  all  the  ardor  that  suits  our  connection  !  The 
poor  girl  has  spent  a  dull  summer  at  Westbury.  We 
have  had  a  world  of  good  company  in  her  absence, 
and  I  am  of  a  mind  to  reserve  some  for  her  at  her 
return.  I  begin  to  grow  very  impatient  for  some 
account  from  Parnassus.  You  have  seen  Mr.  Dwight, 
I  hope?  It  is  as  much  as  I  can  do  to  say  I  have, 
he  made  so  short  a  visit,  and  his  friends  were  almost 
ready  to  pull  him  to  pieces.  ’Tis  almost  a  misfortune 
to  be  so  very  good,  and  so  much  beloved.  Let  me 
hear  soon.  You  should  not  wait,  for  you  have  ten 
times  my  leisure.” 


“  October  17,  1779. 

"I  am  extremely  pleased  with  the  dependence  you 
put  upon  my  friendship,  nor  shall  it  ever  disappoint 
you.  I  will  tell  you  all  I  know.  Those  gentlemen 
to  whom  your  friends  have  mentioned  your  plan 
approve  of  it,  and  say  that  you  shall  be  encouraged. 
I  wish  God  would  give  some  of  them  a  heart  to  do 
all  that  you  want,  or  rather  I  wish  he  would  give 
some  of  us  who  have  hearts  the  means.  I  must  own 
to  you,  dear  Joel,  that  I  have  no  great  expectation 
that  those  to  whom  the  affair  has  been  mentioned 
will  do  any  thing  effectual  about  it.  I  have  had  much 
conversation  with  Webster,  and  he  is  still  sanguine. 
He  will  write  you  all  his  thoughts,  and  desire  you 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


93 


to  stay  in  New  Haven,  until  he  can  tell  you  with 
certainty  what  to  depend  upon.  In  this  I  join  him, 
as  in  a  short  time  he  will  probably  be  able  to  inform 
you.  Let  me  beg  of  you,  dear  friend,  not  to  be  dis¬ 
couraged  with  regard  to  your  design,  though  it 
should  not  proceed  at  this  time,  and  above  all  things 
not  to  give  yourself  any  uneasiness  about  what  your 
friends  have  attempted.  If  it  should  not  succeed,  it 
cannot  possibly  be  of  any  disadvantage  to  you  that 
I  can  think  of.  Your  friends  will  be  proud  to  avow 
that  it  originated  with  them.  It  has  at  least  made 
you  known  to  some  worthy  men,  who  will  wish  you 
well,  and  probably  do  you  service,  if  not  in  the  way 
and  at  the  time  I  wish. 

"Yet  I  feel  for  your  delicacy,  which  is  wounded 
by  the  idea  you  entertain  of  the  matter.  Be  assured 
I  have  not  mentioned  it  to  any  mortal,  nor  shall  I ; 
and  I  believe  Webster  has  mentioned  it  only  to  those 
he  thought  might  be  of  service.  How  far  they  may 
mention  it,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but  I  beg  you 
would  give  }rourself  no  trouble  about  it. 

"And  now,  let  me  entreat  you,  once  more,  not  to 
be  dejected  on  any  account.  ’Tis  true  you  are  in  a 
disagreeable  situation,  but  it  will  be  mended  soon. 
Fortune  owes  you  much,  and  she  will  pay  you.  You 
are  placed  at  the  bottom  of  the  wheel,  and  every 
change  must  be  for  the  better.  You  have  every  thing 
to  hope  and  nothing  to  fear.  I  know  that  you  de¬ 
spise  the  favors  of  Fortune,  except  so  far  as  they  are 


94 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


necessary  to  the  prosecution  of  your  noble  and  benef¬ 
icent  designs.  I  know  your  soul  is  as  superior  to 
the  sordid  love  of  wealth  as  your  genius  is  to  that 
of  the  generality  of  men.  All  I  wish  for  you  is  a 
decent  independence  that  will  enable  you  to  gratify 
your  favorite  inclinations.  If  those  who  can  help 
you  to  this  will  not,  you  must  help  yourself ;  for  you 
will  certainly  meet  with  assistance.  Keep  up  your 
spirits,  and  be  certain  of  the  constant  affection  of 
your  friends.  In  me  you  will  always  find  a  true 
one,  as  I  will  show  you  by  more  than  words.” 

The  above  letter  speaks  for  itself.  Barlow  had 
been  shaping  the  "  Columbiad  ”  all  through  the  war. 
It  is  probable  that  the  poem  owed  its  final  name  to 
Dr.  Dwight,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to 
call  America  "Columbia.”  It  seems  that  Eliza  and 
his  friends  Webster  and  Watson  had  made  a  move¬ 
ment  in  Hartford  toward  a  subscription  in  behalf  of 
its  publication,  which  alarmed  Barlow’s  delicacy. 
But  there  was  every  reason  why  Barlow’s  plans 
should  be  entitled  to  the  sympathy  of  the  whole 
State.  As  chaplain  and  soldier,  —  especially  at 
White  Plains,  —  his  sermons  and  his  songs  had  done 
much  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  soldiers. 

Eliza’s  strong  practical  sense  shows  to  great  ad¬ 
vantage  in  this  letter ;  so  also  does  her  womanly 
sweetness.  The  subject  is  continued  :  — 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


95 


“  November,  1779. 

"What  time  I  have,  I  steal  from  our  dear 
Northampton  friends.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dwight,  Sally, 
and  Mrs.  Storrs  speak  of  you  with  a  great  deal  of 
affection,  and  hoped  to  have  met  you  here. 

"  I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  now  inform  you  with 
respect  to  Colonel  Broom.  I  will  take  the  earliest 
opportunity,  but  it  might  not  be  proper  to  mention 
it  just  at  present,  as  the  family  are  overwhelmed 
with  affliction  at  the  loss  of  a  dear  sister.  The  use 
you  make  of  that  melancholy  event  is  just  and 
rational.  I  always  feel  that  the  loss  of  one  friend 
binds  the  rest  closer  to  my  heart.  I  am  sorry  for 
Ruthe’s  misfortune.  Tell  her  that  I  love  her,  and  will 
write  by  the  first  opportunity.  I  find  at  last  your 
long-sought  letter  from  Mr.  Baldwin.  Mr.  Dwight 
found  it  at  Northampton,  and  brought  it  here.  I 
hope  it  will  make  some  amends  for  your  disappoint¬ 
ment  in  not  seeing  him.  Providence  will  throw 
something  in  your  way  before  long.  I  have  very 
little  expectation  of  your  coming  to  Colonel  Broom, 
because  his  children  are  so  young.  I  can  hardly 
think  he  wants  an  instructor.  If  he  should,  I 
believe  you  would  be  acceptable  to  him,  and  have 
no  doubt  the  place  would  suit  you.” 

“  December  18,  1779. 

"  I  thought  you  were  not  in  quite  good  spirits 
when  you  wrote  last.  It  has  not  come  to  that  yet, 


96  THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


that  the  world  has  nothing  for  you  to  do.  Besides, 
your  friends  will  always  want  you.  One  of  those 
on  whom  you  had  the  least  dependence  has  found 
an  employment  for  you  that  I  think  will  be  agree¬ 
able.  This  is  Mr.  Dwight.  His  school  is  like  to 
proceed ;  and  with  him  I  think  you  must  be  happy, 
and  will  have  some  advantages  for  study  that  you 
can  have  nowhere  else.  Watson  will  write  you 
more  about  the  matter.  I  am  much  pleased  with 
having  you  settled  at  Northampton,  at  least  for  a 
time.  What  an  excellent  man  is  our  friend  !  I 
never  think  of  him,  but  with  gratitude  to  heaven 
for  having  made  him  so  worthy  and  so  amiable. 

"  I  have  just  been  reading  a  pretty  observation  in 
the  '  Guardian,’  which  I  apply  to  him, — 

It  is  a  tribute  which  ought  to  be  paid  to  Provi¬ 
dence  by  men  of  distinguished  faculties  to  praise 
and  adore  the  Author  of  their  being  with  a  spirit 
suitable  to  those  faculties,  and  so  rouse  slower  men 
to  a  participation  in  their  transports.’ 

"Thus  does  our  admirable  friend.  It  is  almost 
impossible  for  any  one  to  be  in  his  company,  and 
not  grow  wiser  and  better.  Does  not  this  storm 
make  you  think  of  one  we  had  last  Christmas? 
How  do  the  Muses?  I  intend  to  send  them  some 
work  soon.  I  have  a  song  of  which  the  tune  is 
excellent  and  the  words  poor,  the  subject  a  parting 
between  two  lovers.  What  could  be  better?  I  will 
send  you  a  coppy,  and  if  you  will  let  Quammeny 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


97 


take  it,  and  work  it  into  a  more  eligible  form,  I 
shall  be  much  obliged.  In  all  moods  and  tenses, 
lam  "Yours.” 

Barlow  here  makes  a  visit  to  Hartford. 

“December  28,  1779. 

"  I  had  no  opportunity  for  conversation  when  you 
were  here.  It  was  literally  seeing  you.  So  I  know 
nothing  of  the  situation  of  your  mind  or  your  pros¬ 
pects.  I  was  happy  to  see  you  in  better  spirits.  You 
have  much  to  hope,  and  I,  who  am  never  sanguine, 
think  you  have  at  present  good  reason  to  hope  almost 
all  you  can  wish.  Enclosed  is  the  song.  I  will  get 
the  tune,  which  is  a  fine  one,  pricked,  and  send  it. 
Webster  was  here  the  afternoon  you  left,  and  sorry 
he  could  not  see  you.  Pray  keep  Quammeny  in 
employ.  Watson  is  afraid  she  will  freeze  in  spight 
of  all  he  has  done  for  her.  I  intend  to  slip  down 
and  see  what  she  is  about.” 

From  this  allusion  to  Watson,  it  is  probable  that 
some  money  was  raised  for  Barlow  in  Hartford. 

Between  this  letter  of  December  28,  and  the  next 
of  February  25,  Eliza  seems  to  have  gone  to  New 
Haven.  The  spelling  of  these  letters  is  perfectly 
modern.  One  or  two  peculiarities  or  slips  of  the 
pen  —  such  as  "  coppy,”  "  riske,”  "  Ruthe,”  "  spight  ” 
—  I  have  carefully  preserved. 


98 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


“February  25,  1780. 

"This  is  just  to  inform  you  that  I  am  not  in  Boston. 
I  don’t  choose  that  the  report  of  my  being  there 
should  deprive  me  of  letters.  I  wish  to  keep  up  a 
constant  correspondence,  and  shall  write  such  stuff 
as  I  have,  and  expect  in  return  the  'wit  of  the 
Muses.’  Is  not  this  a  modest  bargain  I  make  with 
}Tou?  But  sometimes  by  luck  or  study  I  write  better 
than  this.  I  hear  little  from  you  this  winter,  but  will 
not  complain,  for  I  presume  you  are  employed  in 
taking  care  of  the  family.  However,  there  was  a 
time  when  no  cares  would  have  made  you  so  long 
unmindful  of  your  dearest ,  I  mean  one  of  your 
dearest  'wifes;’  but  we  have  been  married  more 
than  a  year,  and,  if  we  are  not  quite  so  attentive  to 
each  other  as  at  first,  few  of  our  contemporaries  will 
be  able  to  reproach  us.  If  this  letter  is  not  quite 
as  good  as  it  should  be,  I  do  not  much  care,  for  you 
have  got  a  fine  long  one  from  Mr.  Lyman.  So  I 
judge  by  the  outside,  which  I  assure  you  is  all  I 
have  seen.  I  wish  I  were  with  you,  to  help  you 
read  it.  I  had  a  good  mind  to  have  made  use  of 
the  privileges  of  a  wife  and  opened  it,  so  great  was 
my  desire  to  see  the  production  of  so  fine  a  pen. 
Pray  what  has  Quammeny  done  with  my  song? 
If  she  has  not  finished  it,  she  is  an  idle  hussy,  and  I 
beg  you  will  set  her  immediately  about  it.  I  am 
sure  that  her  sisters  would  rather  she  should  do 
their  work  over  after  them  than  be  idle,  for  they 
are  all  spinsters.” 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


99 


“  May  12,  1781. 

"  I  heard  from  you  by  Mr.  Levengsworth,  but  why 
did  you  let  him  come  without  a  letter?  Give  my 
love  to  Ruthe,  and  tell  her  that  I  do  try  to  be  as 
generous  as  possible,  and  do  not  begrudge  you  to 
her  but  a  little.  I  will  write  the  dear  girl  by  the 
very  first  opportunity.  You  enquire  about  Mr. 
Dwight.  He  will  be  in  New  Haven  next  week.” 

The  letters  close  with  the  following  to  Mrs. 
Barlow.  The  benevolence,  cheerfulness,  activity, 
and  practical  sense  they  indicate,  written  just  before 
and  after  Buckminster’s  marriage,  are  in  strange  con¬ 
trast  to  the  half-insane  despair  and  moody  regret 
usually  attributed  to  her  at  this  period  :  — 

“  Hartford,  Nov.  25,  1782. 

"  My  dear  Ruthe,  —  I  thank  you  a  thousand 
times  for  your  letter  and  the  agreeable  news  it 
contains.  Will  we  admit  you,  do  you  ask,  into  this 
excellent  town  of  Hartford?  Yes,  with  as  much 
pleasure  as  a  lawyer  his  client,  or  a  lady  her 
lover;  and  rather  than  you  should  not  have  room, 
I  should  be  willing  to  turn  out  several  that  I  know 
of,  notwithstanding  that  I  always  thought  myself 
very  public-spirited,  and  know  that  the  riches  of  a 
community  consists  in  the  number  of  its  inhabitants. 

"But  I  hope  that  we  need  not  impoverish  ourselves 
on  your  account,  but  that  you  will  add  to  our  strength 


IOO 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


and  riches  by  coming  amongst  us  ;  for  Goodrich  has, 
I  suppose,  —  as  perhaps  he  wrote  you  word,  —  by 
this  time  secured  you  a  very  good  place.  I  believe 
it  will  be  in  Trumbull’s  neighborhood,  but  when  I 
last  saw  Goodrich  he  was  not  quite  certain. 

"  As  to  what  you  tell  of  your  poverty,  I  am  glad 
of  it  with  all  my  heart,  for  many  reasons.  I  believe 
I  shall  not  mention  more  than  three  or  four,  and  leave 
the  rest  to  some  other  opportunity. 

"  In  the  first  place,  then,  I  love  you  so  well  as  to 
be  willing  to  share  almost  any  fortune  with  you,  and 
we  are  poor,  and  always  have  been  so,  and  are 
contriving  to  become  still  more  poor  if  we  can.  In 
this  we  are  no  way  singular.  Most  of  the  people 
of  merit  that  we  have  ever  known  or  heard  of,  are 
or  were  so  before  us.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
because  we  are  poor  we  must  absolutely  be  people 
of  merit,  but  I  think,  as  the  world  goes,  the  sign  is 
very  much  in  our  favor.  Then  as  for  poets  and 
men  of  genius,  with  whom  you  have  a  right  to  class 
your  husband,  they  have  always  been  poor  from 
time  immemorial.  I  need  not  mention  Homer,  the 
prince  of  them,  who  sung  his  epic  poem  about  the 
streets,  nor  a  thousand  others,  whose  history  I  dare 
say  you  have  at  your  tongue’s  end.  For  my  part, 
I  am  apt  to  imagine  poverty  to  be  a  peculiar  mark 
of  the  favor  of  Heaven,  as  the  ancients  used  to 
esteem  it  to  be  struck  by  lightning.  I  only  wish,  my 
dear,  that  you  were  half  as  well  convinced  of  its 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


IOI 


blessings  and  advantages  as  I  am.  You  would  then 
be  perfectly  contented  if  it  should  be  your  lot,  — 
which,  however,  you  are  by  no  means  certain  of, 
unless  you  take  great  pains  to  deserve  it. 

"Polly  is  in  a  great  hurry  with  some  work,  and 
therefore  the  agreeable  task  of  writing  for  both 
devolves  upon  me.  I  do  not  doubt  she  will  set  her 
hand  to  all  I  have  said  or  can  say  about  poverty. 
I  am  heartily  glad  to  hear,  my  dear  friend,  that  you 
are  treated  at  home  with  kindness  and  attention  ; 
not  that  I  by  any  means  think  that  enough  for  so 
deserving  a  child  as  you  have  ever  been  ;  but  I 
could  not  bear,  as  I  have  sometimes  told  you,  to 
have  you  on  other  than  friendly  terms  with  your 
own  father.  I  can’t  but  hope  he  will  yet  do  you 
justice  some  time  or  other ;  and  I  think  we  ought  to 
suffer  any  thing  but  absolute  slavery  from  so  revered 
a  character,  rather  than  show  resentment. 

"The  walking  has  been  so  extremely  bad  that  I 
have  been  able  to  make  but  little  inquiry  about 
crockery.  There  is,  I  believe,  considerable  queen’s- 
ware  in  town.  I  am  not  certain  about  china.  I 
will  look  for  this,  and  let  you  know  as  soon  as  pos¬ 
sible.  I  believe  such  things  are  not  less  high  here 
than  in  New  Haven  ;  but  then  you  would  save  the 
trouble  of  bringing  them.  Pray  give  my  love  to 
Joel,  if  he  is  returned.  Mr.  Wadsworth  sends  his 
to  you,  and  thanks  you  for  remembering  him  when 
you  were  at  Ridgefield.  Mamma,  Abby,  every- 


102 


THE  STORY  AND  THE  LETTER. 


body,  send  love  to  you,  and  wish  to  see  you.  You 
see,  my  dear,  I  have  no  less  propensity  to  write 
long  letters  than  you  have.  Don’t  you  think  it  is 
the  sign  of  a  fertile  genius?  But  I  must  bid  you 
adieu,  for  the  present. 

“E.  W.” 

These  letters  are  Eliza  Wharton’s  appeal  to  pos¬ 
terity, —  to  a  world  which  has  misjudged  her. 

They  were  written  by  a  light-hearted  and  fanci¬ 
ful,  as  well  as  by  a  cultivated,  woman,  but  neither 
by  a  wanton  nor  a  "  coquette.” 


Cambridge  :  Press  of  John  Wilson  and  Son. 


SUPPLIED  BY 

the  seven  bookhunters 

SIAT.ON  H  -  BOX  66  -  NEW  YORK  C.TY 

Out-of-Print  Books 


I 


I 


4 


■ 


Date  Due 


ae.w 

Form  335.  45M  8-37. 

Duke  University  Libraries 


818.49  D144R 

324384 

Dali 

Romance  of 

the  Associat- 

813.49 


D144R 


324334 


